Grigori by Smith Lauren

Author:Smith, Lauren
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2017-10-03T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 9

Noble dragons don’t have friends. The nearest they can get to the idea is an enemy who is still alive.

―Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!

“Grigori?”

The sound of his name on her lips had him turning to Madelyn in time to watch her tentatively step out of his office and walk towards him.

He couldn’t resist the need to hold her. He pulled her into his arms, taking comfort in the way she hugged him back. The sweet scent of her filled the senses, calming him and his dragon. He relished that she embraced him back, didn’t fight him. He may be old-fashioned in his wooing, as Rurik had often teased him, but he loved a woman who melted in his arms. A long moment later, she pushed back from a bit and spoke.

“What did he mean? About the Romanovs? Not . . . the Romanovs?” She raised her face and he gazed down at her beautiful eyes.

He didn’t want to tell her—he didn’t even want to remember the night he lost that particular war, but he couldn’t seem to deny her anything. Especially when she looked at him like she did now—as if he held the answers to all the questions she’d ever had. As if, with a word, he could give her the world. And I want to . . .

“Yes. Those Romanovs. The last Czars of Russia,” he admitted, voice heavy with memory. “My family fought hard to keep them in power.” He paused, swallowed the bitterness that came with this memory. “But in the end, we lost to the Reds. The Red Army swept through our defenses, and before we could save the family and escort them to our protected lands, they were gone.” And when they’d been shot in the basement, not even the jewels they’d sewn into their corsets could stop the bullets or the bayonet blades. The bodies had been burned and left in a shallow, ashen grave. That night the Barinov dragons roared and grieved for their human counterparts, the last royal line of humans in Russia . . . and their only allies in a country suddenly mad with communism.

Rurik and Grigori had stood next to their father, the ashes from the fire drifting like snow in the air around them. The Romanov family was gone. Grigori had tears of fury in his eyes as he remembered Tatiana’s laugh, the twinkling in young Anastasia’s eyes, the way Olga had danced. They were gone. Each light in the darkness snuffed out by the greed of men.

After that, no Barinov had ever trusted human men again. Their trust in alliances with humans had ended. They were too motivated by greed, like the Drakors.

“Holy crap. You knew the Romanovs.” Madelyn’s eyes were full of awe and it somehow lessened the sting of these older, painful memories. Her expression reminded him of when he first learned to fly as a dragon. He had entered a bank of storm clouds only to emerge on the other side and find he’d burst through a rainbow.

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