The Lost Barinov Dragon

Brothers of Ash and Fire - Book 4

Lauren Smith

Contents

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

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Epilogue

The Bite of Winter

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

Copyright © 2021 by Lauren Smith

Cover Design by The Book Brander

All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitutes unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at lauren@laurensmithbooks.com. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

ISBN: 978-1-952063-18-3 (e-book edition)

ISBN: 978-1-952063-19-0 (trade paperback edition)

Prologue

Excerpt from Barrow’s Journal – My Year with Dragons

There are four types of skills that dragons can be born with or develop as they age. The first is the battle dragon, a dragon suited to fight and defend in territorial disputes. The second is the hoarding dragon, who is a guardian for the valuable gemstones and treasures that dragon families collect. The third is the family patriarch or matriarch. This dragon ensures the survival of the line of dragons by arranging matings, overseeing the running of territories, and protecting the interests of all dragons in their family. The last type of dragon is the questing dragon, a dragon so rare that only one in every two or three hundred years is born. This dragon quests for dragon heart stones, the gemstones that possess the ability to hold a dragon’s soul and keep it safe, a mission so sacred that many questing dragons die at the claws of their enemies in their search for these stones.

Switzerland, 1292 AD

Vasili Barinov dug his claws into the craggy rocks and ice as he scaled the mountainside. Despite the thick protection of his dragon scales, the cold temperature still sent a shudder through him.

Cannot stop . . . The thought pounded inside his head like a steady drum, over and over. He was close. He was certain.

How much farther, my heart? The thought came to him in a steady, clear feminine voice. His mate, Marina, was a little way below him, carefully following the path he forged, placing her clawed feet where his had been.

It’s close, my love, very close, he answered through their mate bond. Not all dragon shifters had such a strong mental connection to their mates, but he and Marina were intensely bonded. They had grown up as children together and had known their whole lives that they were mates. That was even rarer. To find a true mate was not an easy thing; some lived thousands of years and never did.

Vasili’s front left foot slipped, and he snarled, steam huffing from his long snout as he caught himself from falling.

Careful! Marina cautioned him.

He didn’t reply but focused harder on the ascent. Every few steps he would pause, take the cold air deep into his cavernous lungs, and close his eyes. Only then did he hear the hum, the magic of the dragon heart stone. The stones were almost gone from the world now, many destroyed, others lost beyond recovery.

Vasili’s purpose was to find and protect such stones, as well as the dragon souls contained within them. In the event that a human should become a dragon’s mate, the stone could bond the human with a dragon soul inside. Such a thing was crucial for the survival of his race. When a dragon died, its mate would quickly follow. And since human lives were so brief and fragile, the dragon’s life would be cut short.

He had lost one of his sister this way, when her human mate had fought and died in battle. Vasili had vowed never again to let anyone in his family die from the “mate grief” of having a mortal mate.

I sense it too, Vasili, Marina said in excitement.

He huffed and began to climb again. They were almost there. The hum became a murmur of voices. The dragon souls were singing; there was more than one soul inside the stone. Incredible! His heart swelled with pure joy at the thought of such a wonderful discovery.

A cave opening appeared a few feet above, and Vasili pushed his way inside. It was far larger than he had expected. Even in his massive dragon form, there was room for Marina to climb inside behind him.

He changed into his human form just as his mate slid into the cave behind him. They possessed enough dragon magic that they could change between human and dragon form and keep the clothes they wore. Many dragons never mastered such a skill.

Vasili waited for Marina to change, and then he held out his hand to her. The raven-haired beauty beamed in excitement as he pulled her close and kissed her temple. It had been a long and dangerous journey to get here and find the stone, but they had made it. Just beyond them, nestled in the ice, was the large sapphire that had called to him in his dreams: the Heart of Sorrows. As a questing dragon, he had the ability to sense dragon heart stones, gemstones that held dragon souls within them. He’d left his home and his family to find this stone, and now here it was, within reach. It glowed, and an ethereal light made it pulse like a beating blue heart.

“There is more than one, Marina,” he whispered. “More than one soul inside the stone. Can you feel it?”

Her brown eyes widened. “Oh, Vasili . . .” She brushed away tears. “So many lives will be saved with it.”

They walked to the wall of ice, and he placed his human palm on its surface. He summoned his dragon side, and the fire that filled his veins now reached out from his skin, melting the ice directly into steam. Soon he was able to free the stone.

He turned to his beloved mate. “We must hurry, love. Now that we have it, we can fly back to Novgorod.”

Marina kissed his cheek. He nodded and brushed away the remaining ice that still clung to the sapphire before he slipped it into a pouch on his wrist. The straps were designed to stretch with him as his dragon form took over.

“I’ll go first and clear the way in case we were followed.” Marina morphed back into a dark-golden dragon and crawled to the cave entrance. She kept her tail straight and her wings folded as she approached the ledge, then took a breath and leapt into the air.

He watched her take to the sky. His lips curved into a smile, but a moment later, black shapes appeared on the horizon.

Black dragons . . . The Drakors had found them. Too many of them not to be a threat. Fear for his mate’s safety exploded through him as he rushed toward the edge of the cave entrance.

Marina, they’ve found us. Go!

His mate didn’t reply. She shot up into the air, vanishing above the clouds, no doubt attempting to draw them away. She was smaller and faster, and they would assume she had the stone in her possession.

Vasili began to change, but he wasn’t fast enough. He saw his mate’s view in his mind.

Black shapes filled the skies. Several of the enemy dragons burst up above the clouds, barreling toward Marina. She roared, the sound fierce and as loud as an earthquake shaking an entire continent. The walls of the cave vibrated around him, and cracks in the ice formed rapidly.

Wait for me! Do not fight them alone! He shouted the thought to his mate. Marina was a fierce battle dragon, but even she was no match for ten Drakors.

A shadow flashed across the cave entrance just as Vasili slid out and dropped into the air. Dimitri Drakor, the eldest son of the Drakor family’s patriarch, was just above him, careening straight for Marina’s back.

Vasili took flight and rocketed upward. He sank his teeth into Dimitri’s flank, but Dimitri swung his tail toward Vasili. Vasili dodged the blow, but not quite enough. Poisoned spikes raked his side, cutting through his thick hide. He roared in rage, releasing Dimitri as he fought the wave of pain that followed.

Don’t fight them, Marina. Flee! he urged his mate as he cleared more clouds.

His heart shook as he saw his mate fighting off several dragons twice her size. He swooped toward them, claws out, striking at as many as he could, but everything that happened next was a blur straight from his deepest nightmares.

His mate fell from the sky, blood misting the air around her. A black dragon roared in triumph, its teeth stained red with blood. Pain exploded through Vasili as his mate’s agony became his own. He tucked his wings against his body and plunged toward the ground, chasing her falling form, desperate to catch her before she hit the ground.

She crashed against the mountainside and came to a stop on the ledge just below the cave to the dragon heart stone.

Vasili gripped the mountainside, skidding down toward Marina, bloodying his clawed feet as they slipped along jagged rock. When he reached her, her breath was slow and shallow. Her throat had been torn, and she was losing precious blood. He keened softly and nuzzled her, huffing out short breaths in dread.

My heart, he murmured to her. Don’t give up. Try to heal . . . try . . . Marina had a unique ability to heal herself and others. The magic in her blood was strong enough to work miracles. She was the last of her bloodline, and the drakeling children they had planned to have would have held that ability too, but a terrible fear whispered that she was beyond miracles now.

I can’t . . . Vasili . . . too much. Hide the stone . . . Marina’s voice in his head was weak, tired. His wings rippled to flatten against his back. Above them, the other dragons circled, waiting for them to die. The stone tucked against his leg burned hotter than a dragon’s fire as he snuggled closer to Marina, desperate to let her feel him beside her in her last moments. The Heart of Sorrows pulsed, like a heartbeat, beating against his hide and Marina’s. He prayed that her soul would find its way inside the sapphire, to be safe, but he had never performed the transition ritual before and didn’t know what to do.

He let out a keening cry as his true mate’s breath slowed, and then with a soft huff she was gone. His limbs gave out beneath him, and he curled his body around hers, their blood mixing in the snow.

Let me die swiftly, he thought. There was no reason to live without her. The mate grief began to overpower him.

A sudden burning pulsed against his front leg, making him hiss in rage. He shook himself to stop whatever was causing the sensation. The bundled sapphire bounced against his scales. The dragons circling above were slowly descending.

They cannot have it. Vasili nuzzled Marina’s scaled cheek one last time before he tore himself away and climbed back up into the sheltered cave. His blood stained the icy rock floor as he dragged his injured body through the cave. Her death could not be in vain. He had to protect the Heart of Sorrows from the Drakors with his last breath.

He curled up against the farthest wall. His sharp reptilian eyes studied the cave walls and the fissures in the rocks. He knew what he had to do. Vasili took a final look toward the cave entrance, raised his snout, and inhaled the cold air that blew in from the mountain. It smelled of snow and blood . . . his mate’s blood. The one blessing of dying from mate grief was that he would not have to live long in a world without her, would not have to think every day of the future that had been taken from them and the children they would never have. There would be an end, a quiet, dark, cold end to his pain. His only hope was that he would see Marina again on the other side, where the skies were endless and always under their wings.

He threw back his head and roared out all the pain and heartbreak. The mountain trembled around him, and rocks crashed down and sealed up the entrance with him inside. More rocks than any number of dragons could move, if they could even find the entrance.

Cloaked in the cold darkness, he relaxed. Dimitri Drakor and the others could not get to the stone now. He felt the pain of his wounds fade as the mate grief numbed him. At least his younger brother and his mate had three healthy, grown drakelings who could carry on the Barinov line. The Barinovs would continue to defend their land against the Drakors and protect the humans.

My time is ended.

With his last breath, the ice froze his body, and he felt lost. The dragon heart stone’s glow faded, its energy expiring. His last thought was that not all things lost stayed lost.

But he was glad that if he was found, he would be long gone from this mortal realm. To lose his mate, his other half, stole life itself from him. As the mountain’s rumbling finally settled over the fitting tomb that served as his last resting place, the cave was silent, dark, and cold.

Chapter 1

Excerpt from Barrow’s Journal – My Year with Dragons

There is perhaps no greater territorial dispute in all of dragondom than between the Russian Imperial dragons, the Barinov family and the Drakor family. The conflict began so many millennia ago that none seem to remember where it began, and it is unlikely to end. The greatest period of peace began when Grigori Barinov signed the renewal of a treaty I had the honor of witnessing. I believe this will lead to a golden age for dragons, or at least a time without war.

More than 700 years later – North Carolina

“You must always be safe. Never open the door without me, do you understand?”

The words she’d heard almost all of her life from her mother echoed in Tasha Bellamy’s mind as she removed the lasagna from the oven. The kitchen was quiet; her mother was in her bedroom reading while Tasha checked on their dinner.

“Never open the door without me . . .” Tasha was twenty-one years old now, and she’d had to go to school online her entire life, even college.

Thankfully, she’d been advanced in all of her classes, and at twenty she’d graduated with a bachelor of arts in graphic design. It allowed her to work from home and take care of her mother.

The few times she’d ventured out into the world, usually to get things they couldn’t have delivered to the house, Tasha had looked about her and wondered why it wasn’t safe. What had created such fear in her mother? She didn’t seem mentally unstable; it was just this single unexplainable fear of whatever was outside that door.

All of Tasha’s life, the idea of safety had been a concern for her mother. And because of it, the two of them had lived a quiet life in remote locations or small towns well away from big cities. Once a year—only once—her father would come to see them.

Whenever the doorbell rang, she rushed to open it, despite her mother’s warnings of waiting for her to be there just in case—though she never said in case of what. Tasha didn’t care. She always seemed to know when her father was there; it was as though she could sense his presence, even through the door. So many times she’d dreamed about him, even though she knew he was far away. She would wake convinced that she had been with him while he traveled or sat alone in his office. It was like seeing him through a slightly foggy mirror. They were likely the imaginings of a child, but she hadn’t cared—she’d wanted to feel connected to him, to be a part of the life that he couldn’t share with her and her mother. It made her excitement to see him that much stronger when he finally came to visit.

“Tasha, my little one,” he would say in that deep, rumbling voice, and she would hug him tight, never wanting to let go. Her father was a tall man, with dark hair and fathomless eyes that would have intimidated anyone except for the woman and the child who loved him.

Then, after he kissed her cheeks and hugged her tight, he would seal himself in a room alone with her mother for an hour, their whispers too muffled by the closed door to hear. Tasha would always try to eavesdrop by pressing her ear to the wood. More often than not, her father would open the door and find her standing there. He would arch one dark brow, but he never grew angry with her, never yelled. He simply placed his palm on her head, gently patting her hair, his dark eyes unreadable.

“You will listen to your mother, yes?” he always asked. “Do whatever she says?”

She would nod, and then her father would share dinner with them before leaving them with a briefcase of money and a little present just for Tasha. Small trinkets, stuffed animals, then books, then as she grew older he would leave her jewels. She had half a dozen necklaces of brilliantly colored gemstones. The stones were large and seemed almost too heavy to hang from the delicate chains they had been bound to.

“Cherish them, little one. Promise to protect them. They are very valuable,” her father would say about the gemstones.

“I’ll keep them safe, Dad.” It was important to him, and she knew that whatever it was that kept him away from them, it had to be important. She tried never to get upset that she was growing up without him in her life. That one single day a year was a day she clung to, a day she cherished.

Her time with her father always ended the same way each time. Her father would hold her close and whisper words in Russian she hadn’t understood until she was older and had started learning the language. “Be safe, be strong, be brave.” Then he would leave in the middle of the night and vanish into the darkness. All she would have left then to look forward to until his next visit were her dreams of him.

Now, as she set the lasagna on the stovetop, she stared at the calendar in the kitchen. Her gaze lost focus as she counted the days.

It had been more than a year since her father had last come. He’d never let so many days pass between his visits.

“Mom! Dinner’s ready!” she shouted toward the back of the house.

When her mother came into the kitchen, she smiled as she saw the food. “Where you learned to cook, I’ll never know. You didn’t get it from me.” Her mother came up to her and hugged her shoulders before she went to retrieve dishes and silverware for the table.

“You just follow a recipe. Besides, there’s a lot of good videos online to walk you through it.”

Tasha grew quiet a moment as she set the table with her mother. It had been a few months since she’d dreamed of her father, and something about that bothered her. She’d never gone that long without having one of her dreams. They were silly, childish imaginings, she knew that, but she’d always clung to how real they felt. And the sudden halt to the dreams left her edgy in a way that made no sense.

“Mom . . .”

“Yes?” Her mother looked up at her, and Tasha had the strangest sense she was peering into a mirror of her future. Her mother was a beautiful russet-haired woman with soft brown eyes and a warm smile. Everything about her was warm and inviting and so at odds with the fears she carried about the world and the dangers in it. Tasha wanted to be like her mother, but not including her fear of the world outside.

“Dad hasn’t come to see us. It’s been more than a year.”

Her mother froze as she placed a fork down on the table. “It . . . it’s been more than a year?”

“Just by a few days, but he’s never waited this long.” Tasha didn’t like the sudden pallor of her mother’s face.

“I’m sure he has a reason . . .” Her mother resumed setting the table, but her hands trembled slightly. They’d both lost track of the days recently. Tasha had been busy designing websites for clients, and her mother was an accountant and busy working with her own clients.

“We should eat,” her mother suggested.

Before they could sit down, there was a knock on the front door. Tasha and her mother both stilled.

Her mother looked relieved, but Tasha didn’t sense her father. She’d always been able to know he was there before. Now she sensed nothing.

“You see? He was just running late.”

Despite her misgivings, she had to believe her mother was right. Tasha rushed to open the front door.

“Dad!” Her smile faded as she saw that the man who stood on their porch wasn’t her father.

An elderly man in a funereal black suit held a closed umbrella, its silver pointed tip resting on the wooden floor of the porch. Tasha looked at the evening sky behind him. There wasn’t a cloud to be seen. Did the man think it was going to rain tonight?

“Miss Bellamy, I presume? My name is Lionel Bovill. May I come in? Is your mother here?” He waited politely for her to answer his string of questions.

“Yes, come in. She’s in the kitchen.” Tasha stepped back and he entered, rolling a large suitcase behind him. Was the man planning to move in? The thought drifted across her mind a second before he spoke.

“Regretfully, I am here to inform you that your father has passed away. I am the attorney who was designated to be the executor of his estate.”

Tasha stopped breathing. Her lungs constricted inward, squeezing out the last of her breath as she tried to process Mr. Bovill’s words. Her father was dead. The dreams had stopped. Had she known somehow that he was gone? Was that even possible?

Her mother stood in the doorway to the kitchen, her eyes wide. “What?”

“Mrs. Bellamy?” The man directed the question at her mother.

“Yes?” her mother whispered.

“Very good . . .” The man cleared his throat and straightened his silver-rimmed glasses. Then he reached into his breast pocket, pulling out a letter-size envelope. “I have here the last will and testament of your husband. I apologize for the late hour of my arrival. My instructions were to come here only when it was dark out.”

“How . . . ?” Her mother cleared her throat. “How did it happen?”

The man’s face dipped slightly as he studied the floor. “It was a deliberate death, madam.”

Her mother crumpled, and Tasha dashed over to her, catching her by the waist.

“Sit down, Mom.” She pushed her mother gently into the nearest chair.

“I’m sorry for the shock this news causes. I wish there was an easier way to deliver it.” Mr. Bovill removed the papers from the envelope. “I will read this brief document aloud. I’ve included a list of assets that have been passed to you both, as none of his other children survived.”

At this, her mother’s head shot up. “His sons are gone?”

Sons? She had brothers?

Had . . .

“Yes, all of his other children were killed. The extended family was killed as well. Only Miss Bellamy remains.”

The man’s words finally began to shatter the dazed confusion in Tasha’s head.

“Killed? By whom?”

“The Barinovs,” her mother said in a lifeless tone. She looked to the wizened attorney, who nodded his confirmation. “He always warned me that they would come after him. It’s why he feared for our safety, Tasha.”

“Who are the Barinovs?” Tasha’s chest tightened with a strange pain. She couldn’t breathe. There was no oxygen left in the room. She swayed and everything tilted wildly on its axis. This time it was her mother who steadied her and helped her to sit down.

The name Barinov echoed in her head over and over, like it was spoken through a tunnel. She knew she had heard that name in her dreams of her father, but she couldn’t remember in what context.

“The Barinovs are a powerful family in Russia. They have been at war with your father’s family since before you were born,” her mother explained. “They are why we have been hiding all these years, why we have only been able to see him once a year. They would watch his movements, so he could only come to visit when he felt it was safe to see us.”

“Dad had other children? Was he married to someone else?” Tasha was still dizzy, and a pounding headache was starting to beat against the backs of her eyes. Were these Barinovs some kind of Mafia? Her father was Russian and lived in Moscow. She had always wondered if maybe he had criminal ties. The suitcase of money he left them had always seemed shady. She’d just never let herself really think about it until now.

“He wasn’t married. Those other children were from several other women. He needed them to protect his family interests in Russia.”

A bitter taste filled Tasha’s mouth. Her father had slept around that much? How did that make her mother feel?

“You were special, Tasha. His only girl. He kept you away from the family and its business. He married me in secret, but I never took his name. Even that was too dangerous.”

The elderly attorney cleared his throat. “I’m afraid I must finish this matter quickly. I must leave for another appointment.” He then read the document in his hands, the last will and testament of her father.

The assets were many, and they all blurred together as Mr. Bovill read them.

“Naomi Bellamy is to have a trust provided for her—$19 million—and upon her death, the remaining funds will go to her child, Tasha. Tasha shall receive a trust in the amount of $970 million, as well as ownership of all properties listed in Schedule A attached to this document. She is to have an advance on her trust, to be provided in cash, of $1 million.” The man tapped a finger on the suitcase. “Which I have brought you here.”

Tasha stared at the suitcase, then looked on in shock as Mr. Bovill continued.

“This is your copy of the will. I will be in touch with the remaining paperwork so we may begin the transfer of real estate assets to your name. Now, I’m afraid I must take my leave.”

Tasha was trembling as she accepted the paperwork from Mr. Bovill. A storm of pain was lashing against the walls of her heart as tears blurred her eyes, and she couldn’t read the words of the document.

The old man opened the door and then popped open his umbrella.

“You don’t need to—” Tasha began, but then she saw the rain. It was pouring from the skies in buckets. How had he known it was going to rain?

Her mother closed the door and faced Tasha.

Tasha stared at her mother, and for the first time she saw a stranger. This woman had always held secrets from her about her father, about his life, and now . . . now he was dead and she would never see him again. She would never have answers to the questions she had. Not from him.

Her hands shook, and she curled her fingers into fists to keep the flood of emotion contained.

Her mother’s shoulders dropped, and she let out a sigh. “Tasha, it’s time I told you about your father. It’s time I told you the truth.”

“What do you mean? Like how he was in the mob or something?” She’d suspected he was involved in something less than legal, given the money he was always leaving with them. Despite guessing that, she’d loved her father, loved every minute of the few precious days he’d been in her life and how he’d cared for her.

Her mother joined her on the couch and reached up to stroke her hair away from her face. “No, honey, he wasn’t in the mob.”

“But—”

“Just listen. Your father . . . wasn’t fully human. He was a dragon.”

Tasha laughed. “Mom, that’s not funny. I want you to tell me the truth.”

“I am.” Her mother squeezed her hands hard to get her attention. “Listen to me, Tasha. Your father, Dimitri Drakor, was a dragon shifter. A supernatural being more than three thousand years old . . .”

Four years later – Switzerland

Tasha Bellamy stared up at the peaks of the Swiss Alps. Wetterhorn, Schreckhorn, Mönch, and Jungfrau all reached up to the skies in glorious majesty. They towered like sleepy earth gods over the town of Grindelwald. Evening began to fall, bathing the peaks in alpenglühen, the alpenglow where the setting sun turned the mountains pink. She had arrived two days ago to free herself of worries on the slopes. For the last four years, she had been in a strange sort of melancholy. Ever since she’d learned of her father’s death, things hadn’t been the same. Only now was she trying to jolt herself out of the sadness his death had caused. For the first few years after he’d died, she’d buried herself in her web design work. But now she was desperate for open skies and views of the world she’d never seen before except in books and movies.

She closed her eyes for a brief moment, taking in a deep breath of clean mountain air. Her mother had insisted she stay in the United States and see the Grand Canyon or something closer, safer. If she’d had her way, Tasha would never leave the house.

Tasha had spent her whole life being “safe,” and she was done with it.

She was the daughter of Dimitri Drakor, a dragon shapeshifter. A man who had been more than three thousand years old. The sons the attorney had mentioned had been children he’d fathered by mating briefly with dragonesses, female dragon shifters, to create a stable group of dragons who could protect his territory from his enemies, especially the Barinovs.

Tasha’s mother, however, was completely human. She had been Dimitri’s only true romantic partner, the one he had chosen to marry in secret. So Tasha was technically half dragon. She had asked if she could change into a dragon, but her mother had shaken her head and explained that most human-dragon pairings could not produce a drakeling. Her father had sensed she had no dragon within her, and he had done all he could to protect her from the dangers of his world by keeping her and her mother safely hidden away.

Now she was out in the world traveling, seeing places she had always longed to visit and doing things she’d only ever dared to dream before. Tasha was certain that her father’s enemies, the Barinovs, wouldn’t come after her. She was a human female; she had no place in their world and was no threat to them. Her mother didn’t believe that, but Tasha didn’t care any longer. She felt she was safe, and she wasn’t going to hide for the rest of her life.

Life was too short to stay inside and hide. If she was going to die, she wanted to live first. After spending a month in England and then a month in France, touring the bigger cities and the countryside, she had just arrived two days ago in Switzerland to see the Alps. And it had been worth the tricky travel plans to get to her hotel and then to the mountains for skiing.

She tilted her head back, staring up at the terrifying cliff face of what the locals called “the death wall.” Back in 2006, the ice caps on the mountain had melted and sent rocks and snow crashing down the mountainside, almost crushing the town of Grindelwald. The little town had escaped disaster by a hair’s breadth.

The old Tasha would have trembled at the thought of skiing next to a mountain like that, but after she’d learned the truth, a lot of things held a lot less fear for her. The things that scared her now were the dragons themselves, but according to her mother they were dying out, unable to find mates or adapt to the modern world. The old magic, the magic that had helped give birth to dragons, was vanishing.

Tasha didn’t know what that kind of magic was, but this world, with its Alpine glowing sunsets, was all the magic she needed.

She followed the other skiers up in the gondolas toward the slopes and held her poles tight in her hands. She’d spent the last two days on the bunny slopes with a private instructor, and he’d said she was a natural. She did like going fast, flying down the slopes. It was as close to truly flying as she imagined it could be.

Now she was ready to face the steeper hills, even a few moguls. The ski lift dropped her off, and she saw signs for night skiing pointing toward a trail that led to the far side of the mountain. She might try that one run in the evening before it got too dark. The slopes of the Eiger were already illuminated with floodlights, and she used her poles to guide herself toward the first snow-covered slope.

She felt a strange tingling sensation at the back of her mind and paused. It felt like something had fluttered. The sensation was so faint, Tasha thought she must be imagining it, but as she turned away from the slope and stared up at the mountain, it grew stronger, like a butterfly was inside her head, batting its soft wings against the prison of her skull, trying to get free.

A moment later, the mountain groaned. The rocks around her shook like an old dog waking from sleep and shaking its body to rid itself of a dusting of snow. Her eyes drifted up in mute shock as she saw the shelf of snow far above her breaking off . . . tumbling down . . . and crashing into more snow, creating a tidal wave of deadly white froth.

Avalanche.

Everything happened so fast. People started to run and scream and kick off their skis. But all she saw was the snow barreling toward her, and it rooted her in place.

Then, everything seemed to explode around her like a fierce snowstorm rather than a deadly wave of hard snow and rock. The storm raced past her, knocking her on her back and winding her, but she was otherwise fine. Her skis slid down the slope, far out of reach. She lay on her back, feeling the snow swirling around her.

A man’s voice echoed through the storm. “This way!” She lifted her head, seeking the source of it.

A shadowy figure was waving at her, but she couldn’t make out any of his features. She scrambled to her feet, struggling to wade through the thick snow in her ski boots. She hurried up the slight incline where the man had stood, but he seemed to be walking away from her.

“Wait! I’m coming!” She didn’t want to be left alone in this weather—such strange weather, too. Was an avalanche supposed to do that? Explode into a snowstorm? Had it even been an avalanche at all? She kept trudging through the powdery snow until it gave way to icy rock.

What the hell? She glanced about. The man she had chased after was gone, and somehow she had made it to the rocky side of the Eiger. She had gotten turned about and climbed toward the mountain when she should have been moving away from it. She turned around, but all she saw now was snow blowing in a cloud over her. If she walked away from the mountain and into that storm, she could get lost and die.

She leaned back against the rock behind her, shivering as the temperature continued to drop.

“Help!” she screamed, but her cry was swallowed by the dense snowstorm.

She closed her eyes, filled with an unexplainable anger, anger at being trapped here and dying just when she had finally started to live. This time when she screamed for help, the sound came from somewhere deep within her, a place she’d never been aware of.

The mountain rumbled, the stone behind her crumbling away so that she fell backward. Tasha barreled down a tunnel of ice and rock, banging her head and cracking her ski goggles. She landed on the ground with a hard, pained grunt. When she was finally able to sit up, she removed her gloves and tossed the broken goggles aside, then touched tentative fingertips to her forehead. She hissed in pain.

Tasha glanced around, trying to get a sense of where she had fallen. A distant light came from the hole above where she had tumbled through and reflected off the icy walls, giving her some light to see by. It was a cave inside the mountain. Spears of ice hung from the ceiling, and a faint scent that smelled wonderful teased her nose. It smelled familiar, but she couldn’t place why.

“Oh my God . . .” Little clouds puffed out as she whispered in awe. She put her gloves back on before her fingers froze and got up, hobbling awkwardly in her ski boots. The click of her steps echoed all around her. The chamber was vast, and as it continued on, less light illuminated it, until it faded into an inky darkness. Her rational brain screamed at her to stay right where she was and not wander deeper into the tunnel, but some invisible force pulled her forward.

That tingling started up inside her head again, and something flashed across her mind: Clouds. Cold sunlight. Fear. Pain. Falling.

She braced a hand on the cave wall, struggling to breathe as terror and pain ripped through her.

What the hell was that? It felt as though she had been somewhere else, like she had been falling from the sky.

Tasha moved deeper into the back of the cave, but she skidded to a stop as something glowed in the dark. A soft blue hue pulsated on the ground next to a large pile of black rocks. There was no ice or snow near the glow, just rock. Her body moved of its own accord as she fell under the spell of the glow. She had to have it, had to reach out and take it into her hands and guard it. The desire was overwhelming, to the point that her mind’s eye saw only one thing—the object she must have at any cost.

She stopped a few inches from the glow, removed her right glove, and bent to pick up a pouch that half hid the object giving off the light. It was a stone. As big as an apple. As she peeled away the ragged cloth, her bloody fingertips caressed the surface of the sapphire, and heat seared her flesh. She tried to drop the stone, but it had fused to her skin like superglue and continued to burn. She screamed in pain and doubled over.

Thump thump—thump thump.

Something was pounding her chest, crushing against her heart and lungs. If it didn’t stop, she would die.

“H-help . . . ,” she wheezed, even though no one would hear her. She was going to die, and her mother would never know what had happened to her.

Thump thump—thump thump.

A large pile of black rocks crumbled beside her, revealing something nearly as large, but not made of stone. Tasha stared at the black thing that lay against the back wall of the cave as she tried to force herself to breathe. It looked like . . .

Scales, not rocks. What she could see resembled the pointed end of a large tail, curled around a snout with a closed eye.

A dragon. She had stumbled upon a dragon. One who’d clearly died in this cave, like she was going to.

Thump thump—thump thump.

She should run, try to flee back up the tunnel she had fallen through, but as the heat of the stone seeped into her, it compelled her to move toward the dragon. She fell to her knees by the head of the dragon and placed the stone down by its throat. Too exhausted to do more, she leaned against the frozen dragon and stroked a hand down its scaled hide.

Now she was able to let go of the stone (or did it let go of her?), and she placed her bare hand on the tip of the dragon’s snout, stroking it. There was something pitiful and sorrowful about it. She thought dragons were supposed to be frightening, but this beast in front of her was beautiful, tragically beautiful.

As she studied the dragon, she began to understand what the other half of her father’s life had been like. It was one thing to hear her mother speak of dragons, but to see one herself? It was beyond all her fairy-tale imaginings.

The dragon was both beautiful and terrifying all at once. He looked fierce, yet his snout was elegant, and his claws and tail all painted a portrait of something ancient and noble.

“How did you end up here?” she wondered aloud.

Thump thump—thump thump.

The beating against her chest was stronger now, but it hurt far less. She breathed through the pain. It felt more important to be here with this dragon, and she focused on the creature before her instead of the pain inside her.

“Who were you?” she whispered. The dragon had to have been there a very long time. She examined it, noting the frill that lay flat against its neck, and then a splash of dark black on the ice by its belly caught her eye. It looked like dried blood. Her mother had told her that all dragons in the world were dragon shifters, so whoever this was had been human too, after a fashion.

Thump thump—thump thump.

She put a hand to her chest, unable to stop a groan of pain. The stress of almost dying might’ve been enough to give her a heart attack.

Tasha examined the dragon’s stomach, or at least the side of it. Deep gashes covered the beautiful black scales and the amber-colored hide of its underbelly. Something terrible had hurt this dragon, had wounded it enough to kill it.

Overcome with exhaustion, she lay back against the dragon and closed her eyes. The heavy blue stone still generated heat, and she kept her hold on it as she tried to rest long enough to think about how to find a way out of here. Her parents had wanted to keep her away from dragons, but now here she was, dying with one.

“It’s just you and me, buddy.” She patted the frozen body of the dragon. “You, me, and a really weird glowing stone.” She tilted her head back as the cold stole over her limbs again.

Thump thump—thump thump—thump thump—thump thump.

This time, the beat came not from her own body but from behind her. Tasha’s eyes flew open, and she scrambled away from the dragon as it shook. The cave walls rumbled as a great rush of warm air puffed out of the dragon’s nostrils.

“Holy sh—”

Her words were cut off as the dragon’s eye cracked open, its golden iris gleaming in the dark, and a vertical catlike slit widened and then shrank again.

Fear and awe ricocheted through her. The eye focused on her, and her stomach plummeted as the iciness of the cavern melted away with a fresh heat.

She knew two things for certain: she would never be the same again, and this dragon was not dead.

Chapter 2

Excerpt from Barrow’s Journal – My Year with Dragons

Like many creatures in the animal kingdom, dragons mate for life. There are possible true mates, which provide dragons with a bond so deep that the dragons can hear each other’s thoughts, sense each other’s feelings, and sometimes see what their mate can as though viewing it from their eyes. But this bond has its dangers. If one of the dragons in a true-mated pair dies, the other suffers from mate grief, an emotional response so strong that the remaining dragon dies shortly after its mate. It is the curse of dragonkind to have such a weakness.

Madelyn leaned against the banister at the top of the stairs in her palatial home in the wilds of Russia.

“Grigori, come put Jackson to bed!”

After four years, she was still getting used to living in such a massive house, with crown molding on the ceilings, gilded furniture, and priceless works of art hanging on the walls. It felt like a museum at times, but a comfortable one that she could live in.

“Grigori!” she shouted again. “Your son. Bed. Now!” She knew he could hear her. She’d used her “mom” voice, with a bit of her own thunderbird voice thrown in, something she had learned could travel very, very far.

The door opened at the end of the hall, and Grigori stepped out. She had not realized he was so close.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I thought you were downstairs with Rurik and Mikhail.” She had last seen her husband and his two younger brothers having a drink in his study. It made her heart swell to see all three of them talking together. The last few years, they’d been separated across the globe: Mikhail in England, Rurik in Michigan, and Grigori here in Russia. This was the first time in the past year that all three brothers, their wives, and now their drakelings were under one roof. It was wonderful.

Madelyn smiled as her husband sauntered up to her in his sexy way. He still wore a three-piece gray suit because he’d had virtual meetings with his offices in Moscow most of the day. It reminded her of the first time she’d met him. He’d almost stalked her like a dragon hunting its prey, and she loved being the focus of his intense interest, like she was right now.

“Jackson needs tucking in, does he?” Grigori’s hands went to her hips, holding her still as he leaned in to kiss her. He inhaled her scent and groaned softly. “I never tire of your delicious smell, wife.” He nuzzled her throat, and Madelyn responded with weak-kneed desire. “It makes me want to devour you over and over.”

That brought back wonderfully erotic memories of when he’d threatened to eat her because she had been a virgin . . . and the way he’d eaten her out. She’d nearly died from pleasure.

“Keep doing that and Jackson will have a sibling,” she warned.

Her husband chuckled and gently bit the lobe of her ear. “Perhaps that is exactly what I want. Another little drakeling to run about the house.” He squeezed her bottom, and she melted into his arms to deliver a much deeper kiss.

“Hmm . . . I’m not opposed to that either,” Madelyn whispered. “Let’s go tuck our son in, and then we can find a quiet room with a bed and work on giving him a sister.”

Grigori growled in approval, his dragon rising to the surface and causing his eyes to swirl with gold.

A little boy’s voice piped up from down the hall. “Eww . . .”

Madelyn and Grigori stiffened and turned to see their son standing in the doorway to his bedroom.

“Jackson.” They sighed and tried not to laugh.

“Dad, will you tell me a story?” the boy asked.

Grigori scooped him up and carried him toward the child-size four-poster bed. It was a grand piece of furniture, but the grandeur was slightly offset by the brightly colored superhero sheets. Jackson adored all things superhero. Grigori grumbled all the time about how the boy should have dragon sheets since he was a dragon shifter.

Madelyn reminded Grigori that Jackson might also be a thunderbird. He’d sneezed last week and knocked his father and two uncles flat on the front lawn. If Jackson turned out to be a thunderbird like her, he would be a natural enemy of dragons (at least those who meant his family harm), and if he was able to transform, he could flap his wings and create a sonic boom that would knock any nearby dragons unconscious.

Madelyn, being the last of her kind, secretly hoped for Jackson to at least be partly thunderbird. She still had plenty of years to have drakelings; she just wanted one child to be like her. It wasn’t easy knowing she was the only one of her kind left because dragons like Grigori’s father had hunted her people down.

Grigori plopped Jackson into the bed and tucked him in, then sat down on the edge. Madelyn took the other side of the bed and brushed a hand over Jackson’s blond hair.

“What story do you want me to read? We have . . .” Grigori reached for the top book on the stack on the nightstand. “Harry Potter? You love him.” Grigori flipped through the pages, searching for a bookmarked spot to pick up where they’d last left off.

There was nothing more attractive to her than seeing her fierce, dangerous, sexy husband paging through a book about a boy wizard and gazing fondly at their son. Maybe it was time to work on another drakeling.

Jackson was four in human years, yet he had aged quicker mentally. His verbal communication skills were more like those of an eight-year-old.