Viktor russian dragon he.., p.1
Viktor (Russian Dragon Heat 3), page 1
Contents
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
Newsletter and Social Media Links
About the Author
Other books by Carole Mortimer
Copyright
Copyright © 2021 Carole Mortimer
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Cover Design Copyright © Glass Slipper WebDesign
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Editor: Linda Ingmanson
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Formatter: Glass Slipper WebDesign
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ISBN: 978-1-910597-96-5
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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.
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All Rights Reserved.
Dedication
To my amazing team, Jo, Josh, Linda, and Kim.
Chapter One
“Go back inside the café, take out the money from the till and the safe, and hand it over. And do it all quietly.”
Lilee was sure that, ordinarily, hearing that threat would send a chilled shiver of dread down most people’s spine.
Luckily, Lilee wasn’t ordinary. How could she be when she had been brought up by a mother who believed in fairies and gods and goddesses?
The same mother who was currently in the island’s only mental hospital, having her meds “regulated”—the previous admission had been because of seeing the fairies claim—after announcing to anyone who would listen that dragons were also real because she had seen one.
Because of that, there was no chilled shiver going down Lilee’s spine, only a sense of frustration as she turned from putting the day’s refuse into the large green bin at the back of the café she and her mother owned and ran to look at the two men standing a short distance away. Two young men, from their slender builds and the ubiquitous jeans and T-shirts they were wearing. They both also wore balaclavas. No doubt in the hope of hiding their identity.
Unfortunately, in this case, it was a futile hope.
The gun one of them supposedly had in his pocket, pointed at her, was a little more disconcerting, but Lilee thought it was probably just a hand made to look like the shape of a gun. The Isle of Man wasn’t exactly known for its armed robberies.
It was a small island situated in the middle of the Irish Sea, between England and Ireland, thirty-three miles long and thirteen miles wide, with a population of just over eighty thousand.
Which meant the island’s police force, as well as the residents, usually knew exactly who might be responsible for whatever crime had been committed and would respond appropriately. The most recent suspected “armed robbery” had turned out to be a man with a hammer trying to smash a window in order to gain entry into his own home because he had lost his door key.
Lilee’s café was situated in one of the island’s many bays, and she was kept very busy during the summer season selling drinks and homemade cakes—homemade by a local woman, because cooking really wasn’t Lilee’s forte—along with ice creams and buckets and spades for the children to enjoy on the nearby beach.
But as it was now autumn and it had been raining most of the day, her customers had been few and far between. At five thirty at night, the area was pretty deserted, except for the few dedicated dog owners walking their pets on the beach.
Even so, Lilee didn’t take the threat of the gun seriously.
Instead, she gave a sigh of resigned impatience. “For one thing, if you had done your research, you would know I don’t have a till or a safe to open. Just an unlocked drawer I put the money and receipts into and then take away with me at the end of the day. For another,” she continued before either of her assailants could speak, “my takings today were precisely fifty pounds, which isn’t enough to feed your whacky baccy habit for a week, Robyn Quayle and Juan Clague.” She deliberately addressed them both by their full names, the latter pronounced as Joo-an on the Isle of Man.
It was a throwback to hundreds of years ago when, as had happened with the Viking ships centuries before, Spanish sailing ships were wrecked on the rocks off the island’s rugged coastline. The men who survived had swum to shore, many of them deciding to remain there to become fishermen and marry local women and bring up families. The Spanish name of Juan had quickly been butchered into Joo-an by the indigenous Manx people.
Juan glared at her as he pulled off his balaclava. “How did you know it was us?”
She shrugged. “It really wasn’t that difficult considering I was in the same class at school with your older brother, and”—she turned to the other eighteen-year-old—“your older sister, Robyn. I think I might even have helped Meave babysit you when I was sixteen.” Like her own, this was another Manx name that this time had a different spelling rather than sound.
Robyn released a frustrated huff as he also removed his balaclava, the last of the late summer evening sun shining on the distinctive fiery-red hair and freckled face of all the Quayle children. “I was twelve and didn’t need babysitting,” he muttered.
“As I remember it, you were an absolute pain in the arse who whined and complained all evening.”
He glared moodily. “Because you and Meave sent me to bed at eight o’clock.”
“It was a school night.”
“I was twelve.”
“And now you’re eighteen and attempting to rob a helpless café owner of her hard-earned daily takings.”
Robyn gave a snort, giving up all pretense of there being a gun in his pocket as he instead shoved the balaclava into the pocket of his leather jacket. “There’s nothing helpless about you.”
“You’re right, there isn’t.” She squared her shoulders. “So, the two of you can either take yourselves off, and we’ll forget we ever had this conversation. Or…” She paused with deliberation. “I’m going to utilize my black belt in karate and kick both your arses into tomorrow.”
To her mind, the fact she didn’t have a black belt in karate, or any other martial art, for that matter, had no actual bearing on the validity of the threat. Because she was sure neither Robyn nor Juan knew that.
Even so, she wasn’t quite prepared for the way their eyes now widened so much she could see the whites of them as both boys stared at her and began to back away. Or the look of horror on both their faces as they moved back several more steps before turning on their heels and running away as if the devil himself were chasing them.
“And don’t come back again,” she called after them.
“I doubt they will do so.”
It was Lilee’s turn to pivot on her heel before staring at the man who had just spoken to her. Only to discover, although she hadn’t heard his approach, he was now standing mere feet away from her.
Even in the early evening’s dusk, she could see how tall and powerfully large he was: possibly five or six inches over six feet tall, he wore a thin red tank top that, despite the mizzling rain, clearly revealed his wide and muscular shoulders and chest, tapering to a narrow waist, with dark jeans fitting to his powerfully muscled thighs and legs like a second skin.
Nor could she miss the outline of the long and aroused cock beneath that denim material!
Lilee quickly moved her gaze up to his face and was once again rendered speechless.
The man looked to be aged in his midthirties, with overlong dark hair framing a face so stern it could have been hewn out of the rocky gray hillside surrounding the bay: dark eyes, high cheekbones, a sharp blade of a nose, and a strong and square-shaped jaw. The fullness of his sensual mouth—and that obviously engorged cock!—were the only thing at odds with his chillingly arrogant expression.
None of which was of the least relevance to her, Lilee told herself sternly. Especially that rather large cock. “Isn’t it a bit cold and wet for you to be walking around half naked?” She blurted the words before she gave herself time to think.
A remark which, considering Robyn and Juan had now completely disappeared, leaving her completely alone with this imposing stranger, she would probably have been better keeping to herself.
Viktor was feeling an inner satisfaction at having frightened away the two men who had been attempting to rob his fated mate. He had especially enjoyed the way their eyes had widened and their faces had grown pale when they first saw him descend as his dragon before he then smoothly shifted back to his human form.
He now looked down at what he was wearing. It was raining a little, and his clothing had become slightly damp within seconds of his shift, but otherwise, he could see nothing wrong with the red top and jeans he wore.
Admittedly, his cock had thickened and lengthened the moment he looked at his mate, and that arousal was no doubt visible in the fitted jeans, but her words seemed to imply it was something about his actual clothing she found offensive.
You will explain your remark, he compelled.
Viktor wouldn’t normally have felt elated when a human defied his compulsion—the young men, Juan and Robyn, hadn’t hesitated to do as he told them by leaving—but in this young woman, it only served to confirm what he already knew. She truly was hi
This beautiful young woman was his one true mate.
How or why he was finally able to find her was a miracle, when he had only been flying over this small island on his long journey home to St. Petersburg in Russia when he sensed his mate’s presence below.
Flying, as in his dragon had just reached a height where they could soar majestically above where any human eye would see him. It had surprised Viktor when his dragon suddenly decided to swoop down toward a patch of green only just visible in the gray and tempestuous Irish Sea below.
Having been born in Russia and lived there all his life, Viktor hadn’t even known there was an island between Ireland and England. Or that, having recently taken off from the roof of Pendragon Castle on the Welsh coast, where he had been visiting the Pendragon family of dragon shifters, his own dragon had almost immediately decided to make a sharp descent toward that tiny speck of land below.
As dragon, he had landed on a mountain which, from the panoramic views, appeared to be the island’s highest point. His heightened senses, most especially sight and smell, had then located the enticing perfume of his mate’s present in a bay across the other side of the island.
To arrive there and see the human woman who had to be his mate—there were no other females in sight—being threatened by two young men she appeared to know, had infuriated both Viktor and his dragon.
Luckily for those two young men, Viktor had time to overhear his mate threatening to “kick both their arses into tomorrow,” and seen them both back down, or his dragon would have ripped them to pieces without a qualm. No one threatened or harmed a dragon shifter’s mate and lived.
In this case, his mate.
The young woman looked to be aged in her early twenties, with dark auburn hair that was currently secured at her nape with an elastic band. The natural paleness of her complexion looked as fragile as fine porcelain. Her eyes were a deep green fringed with thick dark lashes, her nose small and pert between high cheekbones, her lips full and bow-shaped, with a small pointed—stubborn?—chin beneath.
A most unattractive apron was secured about her nape and waist, covering her from her breasts to her knees. Nevertheless, Viktor could discern that her breasts were small and pert, her waist slender and hips gently curvaceous, and her legs long and slender in fitted blue jeans.
Viktor had had no idea what his perfect woman would look like—in fact, there had been no women at all in his life for the past two hundred years since he’d finally given up looking for his fated mate—but now he knew she was young and auburn-haired, had green eyes, was slender, and only just tall enough to press her head against the middle of his chest.
Against his heart.
Which, although she didn’t know it, she already completely owned, along with the rest of him.
The heart Viktor had shared only with his dragon until now.
“We should go inside,” she prompted urgently as the rain, which had only been a fine mist until then, suddenly became a deluge of colder and heavier drops.
Viktor scowled his disapproval. “You were almost robbed. It is unwise to immediately place yourself in a position of vulnerability by going alone into a building with a complete stranger.” Humans, in his opinion, trusted too easily and, by doing so, took far too many risks with their lives. He didn’t particularly care about the rest of humanity, but it was unacceptable behavior in his mate.
Her expression turned skeptical as she dismissed, “Robyn and Juan were harmless.”
Viktor had read the minds of those two young man, enough to know that desperation to buy the drugs they enjoyed was overcoming the pleasanter side of their natures. Because of that, he had felt absolutely no qualms about revealing his dragon to them before compelling them both to forget they had seen him in that form and then sending them on their way.
“But perhaps I am not,” he suggested softly.
She studied him more closely for several long and probing minutes.
Take.
Claim.
Ours.
Inside him, Viktor’s dragon clawed and fought against being constrained, and demanded they immediately claim their mate.
Having recently observed two of his six brothers’ behavior toward their mates, also human females, Viktor knew better than to even attempt such a thing without first allowing his mate to get to know him and, hopefully, fall in love with him.
Viktor was a little skeptical about the latter when it referred to himself.
He wasn’t the eldest of the Russian Romanov dragon shifter brothers. That honor went to their king, Viktor’s brother, Vladimir. But Viktor, despite or because he was a prince, was certainly the most socially distant. Especially toward humans. For centuries, he had kept his distance and eschewed all dealings with them.
He had accepted his brothers’, Vladimir and Vaugh, fated mates as being human. Viktor just hadn’t thought the same thing would ever happen to him. He hadn’t thought he would find his fated mate at all, in fact.
He had known that if he ever did meet her that she would have to be human. Because there were no female dragon shifters left in the world. The fact that some special human women had a trace of dragon DNA in their blood, allowing them to survive a mating with a dragon shifter, was a miracle.
At least, Viktor hoped the tests would show this beautiful woman had dragon DNA. If not, she would never survive a dragon shifter mating. Meaning Viktor couldn’t claim or make love to her.
“For God’s sake, will you come inside out of the rain?” she called out to him impatiently from the doorway of the café where she appeared to work.
An impatience and a show of disrespect toward her mate that Viktor would need to curb. Ideally before they were mated.
If they were mated, he reminded himself.
So many things could go wrong to prevent that from happening.
The most obvious of them being that his mate wouldn’t accept him or his dragon as her fated mate.
Chapter Two
Lilee realized the truth of the imposing stranger’s warning regarding “complete strangers” once the two of them were alone inside the closed café.
Too late, of course.
Maybe she was more like her mother than she’d realized.
Oh, not because she believed in the existence of fairies or gods and goddesses and dragons like her mother did. No, it was because Lilee had just behaved as recklessly with her own future well-being as her mother was apt to when she invited complete strangers to come inside and have tea in the cottage she and Lilee shared, which was a short distance away.
Lilee truly believed Robyn and Juan were harmless. But the man now standing inside the café, uncaring that he was dripping rainwater onto her recently mopped floor, looked anything but that.
Despite his stillness, Lilee sensed there was another side to him, a hidden wildness, as if something untamed and fierce existed deep inside him, clawing to be set free.
Which was most definitely her allowing her thoughts to wander into fantasy!
But surely that was better than dwelling too long, or allowing herself to look too long, at the bulge of aroused cock also clamoring to be set free?
She grabbed a clean towel from behind the counter. “Here.” She threw it at him, giving an appreciative nod when he caught it with ease. “It’s to dry your hair and—and chest,” she explained when he made no move to do either.
She tried, she really did, but finally, she couldn’t stop herself from staring at that visibly muscular chest. The man had muscles on his muscles, and he seemed even larger in the confines of the café. His head almost touched the low ceiling.
This added to the impression of his being huge and arrogantly imposing as he looked down the length of his straight nose at her with fathomless dark eyes.
