Deryk (Dragon Hearts #2)(4)
Deryk looked down to where his hands had become dragon along with four-inch talons, and knew the rest of his shift wasn’t far away. His dragon had scented its mate and was preparing to fight anyone who got in the way of his claiming her.
His mate was right here.
In this palace.
Somewhere.
All he had to do was find her.
“So, who are they and what are they like?” Izzi asked her father eagerly when he returned to the kitchen after serving the Romanov brothers and their guests the first course of their dinner.
Her father placed the silver tray he carried down on the table before answering her. “It is not permissible to ask such a question, Izabella. You know this.” He frowned his disapproval.
But Izzi knew that disapproval was because of the other servants in the kitchen. Those servants not privy to the information the Romanov brothers were all dragon shifters.
It was far too big a palace for her parents to keep clean on their own, as well as dealing personally with the needs of the Romanov brothers. Outsiders were employed to take care of the menial tasks that would not bring them into contact with the Romanovs.
Pyotr’s older sister was one of them, Izzi having recommended the other woman to her father after Tanya found herself suddenly unemployed. It was only a temporary job for the other woman, until Tanya found something more suitable. As there was only Pyotr and Tanya, since their parents died ten years ago, the other woman couldn’t afford to be out of a job even for a few weeks or months.
“Besides, there is only one of the guests present at dinner.” Her father softened his severity slightly at Izzi’s disappointed expression. “The other one is unwell after the journey here and remains in his bedchamber.”
“Would you like me to take a dinner tray up to him?” she instantly offered.
“No,” her father drawled, not fooled by her innocent tone for a moment. “I am informed he does not require food and he has bottled water in his room already.”
Which didn’t mean Izzi couldn’t excuse herself once the main course of the meal had been served. Her mother didn’t need her help with dessert and coffee. Izzi’s curiosity was such that she intended to knock on the door of this man’s bedchamber on the pretext of asking if there was anything she could get for him.
Deryk felt as if he had dozens of bees stinging him beneath his skin, sweat beading his forehead as he paced the ornate bedchamber fighting the urge to shift completely. He didn’t bother to turn on the lights. There was no reason to when his dragon’s night vision was excellent.
Knowing how close Deryk was to shifting, Bryn hadn’t wanted to leave him in order to go down to dinner with the Romanov brothers. Deryk had insisted. Grigor had asked the two of them to represent the Pendragon family, and Deryk had no intention of letting his eldest brother down the first evening he was here by appearing for dinner and making a scene because he couldn’t control himself. Or having Bryn excuse both of them so that he could remain here and keep an eye on him.
Not that crying off dinner with the excuse of not feeling well would succeed in fooling the Romanovs for a moment. Dragons didn’t get sick.
Mate.
Except for the mating heat.
Which wasn’t a sickness as such, but more an overwhelming need to fuck and keep fucking until his mate surrendered totally and he had bitten her and put his dragon’s scent all over her. His scent and the mating bite to the back of her neck would warn off other male dragons from coming anywhere near her.
The mating bite was also supposed to calm his dragon down to a manageable level, but Nathaniel’s mating heat seemed to have grown worse since Chloe became pregnant. To the extent that he occasionally growled at his own brothers if they went too close to her.
Deryk’s own mate was here, in the Mikhailov Palace. He knew it. He hadn’t even seen her yet, but he could already feel the possessiveness building inside him where she was concerned.
Bryn was going to make discreet enquiries at dinner, to see if they could work out who she was and what connection she had to the Romanov family. They knew the Russians didn’t have a sister, and it certainly wasn’t the middle-aged woman who had shown them to their bedchambers.
Deryk was filled with a barely contained anticipation at the thought of meeting his mate for the first time. He had thought it was never going to happen, and that he would spend the last few years of his life as inwardly alone as he had always been, fighting the last change that would end his life. But she was here, and close enough he could feel the thrum of their connection. Goddess, he wanted her. To be with her. To know her.
Deryk also sensed his mate was human. Or mostly so, at least. Chances were she also had no knowledge of dragon shifters. Remembering how Chloe had freaked out when Nathaniel tried to tell her what he was, Deryk knew he had to get himself under control before he met his own mate. Otherwise he could, as Grigor had warned two days ago, end up hurting her. Now that he had found her at last, scaring her away was the last thing Deryk wanted to do.
He threw the doors to the balcony of the bedchamber open before stepping outside to draw several deep breaths of the frigidly cold air into his lungs in an effort to dull the heat burning through his body.
Goddess, his emotions were in turmoil. He was filled with euphoria at knowing his mate was near, and fear at the thought of losing her now that he’d found her. His dragon had no doubts she was his mate, and so Deryk didn’t either. But a human might balk at the thought of a dragon mate. Balk? She might run off screaming into the night once she knew what he was.