Deryk (Dragon Hearts #2)(36)
Pyotr snorted. “He’s going to die as you watch.”
If what Pyotr said about his parents’ deaths was true, then perhaps he was justified in his hatred of the Romanov dragons. If it was true, which she still didn’t believe. But even if it was true, neither Deryk nor any of his brothers had been a part of those deaths. Nor did Izzi have any intention of allowing Deryk to fight this fight alone. She was a dragon’s mate—Deryk’s mate—and she intended to act like it.
She didn’t have much time, could hear the murmur of voices coming down the hallway now, easily identifying the second guttural growl as belonging to Deryk. As she had predicted, he had come for her.
“Turn and look at me, damn it.” Pyotr took a painful grasp of Izzi’s arm, obviously intending to forcefully pull her round to face him.
She didn’t hesitate, smashing the glass on the side of the metal sink, as she had intended all along, before turning to thrust the jagged edges against a surprised Pyotr’s jugular vein. “Don’t,” she advised harshly, thrusting the jagged glass farther into his flesh as he would have made a grab for her wrist. She felt slightly sick when she saw the trickle of blood now dripping down his throat, but her hand didn’t so much as tremble as she kept the pressure of the broken glass against his bleeding flesh.
“What the hell—” Deryk took in the scene in the kitchen in one glance before placing his arm about the throat of the woman beside him and squeezing just enough to cause her to start choking for air. “It would seem my mate is no longer appreciative of your hospitality,” he noted with satisfaction.
Which wasn’t to say he wasn’t still angry with Izabella for having put herself in danger, first, by coming here at all, secondly, by attacking and subduing Petrov.
At the same time, he felt immense pride in his mate.
His dragon inwardly purred his own approval.
“Where are the Romanovs?” Pyotr Petrov’s eyes glittered with a fevered hatred. “Cowering in their palace, no doubt,” he added contemptuously.
“We are all here,” Vladimir Romanov said coldly as he stepped into the room to stand beside Deryk. “You will explain yourselves. Now.” Vlad’s voice cracked like a whip.
Pyotr Petrov glared his hatred at the other man. “Do not presume to order us about as you do your other human pets.”
Deryk heard Vlad draw in several calming breaths before speaking again. “Why did you attack Vaughn?”
Petrov’s gaze moved to the hallway, where the rest of the Romanov brothers stood with Grigor and Bryn, his top lip turning back in a sneer as he obviously saw Vaughn was among them. “He’s wanted to fuck my sister for weeks, and last night he believed he was about to succeed. Not quite the end to the evening you expected, was it, dragon?” he scorned.
“Why did you attack him?” Vlad demanded again.
Deryk’s attention hadn’t wavered from Izabella for a moment. He could see by the slight trembling of her arm and the pallor of her cheeks that she was nearing the end of her strength in keeping the jagged edges of glass pressed in warning against Petrov’s throat. “Grigor.” He gave his brother a pointed glance.
Grigor nodded his understanding as he stepped into the room to move to Izabella’s side. “You will leave this to us now,” he said quietly to her, careful not to stand too close to her as he raised his hand to relieve her of the glass. Deryk’s dragon was too close to tolerate any other dragon being near his mate.
Izzi flicked a glance at the eldest Pendragon brother. “You won’t harm them? I— They believe the Romanov dragons killed their parents ten years ago.”
Deryk glanced at Vlad. “Did you?”
“Absolutely not,” the other dragon answered without hesitation.
“Liar!” Tanya bit out fiercely, trying and failing to break free of Deryk’s hold. “You ripped them both apart like the animals you are.”
“Take Izabella and go,” Vlad told Deryk as he took over holding Tanya. “We did not kill any humans ten years ago, nor will we harm these two,” he assured huskily. “You have my word, Izabella.”
Izzi believed him. She also knew by the way Vlad now called her Izabella, as Deryk did, that the eldest Romanov dragon had accepted and approved her mating to the Welsh dragon.
The question was, did she?
It had seemed so easy to know her future was with Deryk when she thought both their lives were in danger, but now the drama was over, all the differences between them came to the surface once again.
Deryk had lived so much longer than she had.
He was so much more experienced, in everything, than she was.
He hadn’t told her yet who this other person was who, in the past, he said had meant something special to him. Maybe a previous mate? Deryk had assured her there was only one true mate for his dragon, and she was it, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t loved another woman before her.
Most daunting of all, Deryk was a dragon.
If they mated, would any future children they had also be dragon?
Whatever the answers were to those questions, Deryk didn’t seem inclined to talk at all during the taxi ride back to the palace. Once there, he tersely instructed her to collect some of her clothes, enough to put in a backpack, and to say goodbye, for now at least, to her parents.
One look at the grimness of his expression was enough to tell Izzi not to argue. That wouldn’t always be the case.