Vladimir (Russian Dragon Heat #1) - Carole Mortimer Page 0,42

it sounded as it if was about to leap from her chest.

They might not have completed the mating with an exchange of blood, but Tanya knew that in every other way, she now belonged to Vladimir as surely as he belonged to her.

Chapter Thirteen

“What is it…?”

“Shh.” Vladimir gently silenced Tanya’s curiosity as he slid carefully from the bed to move stealthily over to the window.

The two of them had foregone a late breakfast to instead fall asleep in each other’s arms shortly after making love together. They would probably have continued to do so if Vladimir’s dragon senses hadn’t forced their way through his heavy sleep, alerting him to danger nearby.

The fact it was already dark again outside, the moon clear and bright as it shone in the window, told him the two of them had slept the day away completely.

A day during which more snow seemed to have fallen, and easily revealed, when Vladimir looked out of the window, fresh footprints in the fluffy whiteness directly in front of the dacha.

The same footprints, and made by the same man, Vladimir had seen near the trees this morning.

One of them, at least.

Vladimir could identify three different sets of footprints. One of them belonged to that original man. The other two were as big if not bigger, implying they were also male. But they were more indented into the snow, as indication they were probably both larger and heavier than the first man.

“Vlad—”

The fierce shake of his head was enough to silence Tanya’s whisper a second time. She now watched him with worried eyes from beneath the warmth of the bedcovers.

Vladimir signaled with his hands that he was going downstairs but wanted her to stay here. If the intruder was who Vladimir thought it was, and he’d brought reinforcements, then Vladimir would prefer Tanya not witness the encounter.

He quickly and quietly pulled on a pair of sweats and a T-shirt he found in one of the dressing-table drawers, probably belonging to Vaughn, before moving quietly from the room toward the stairs.

His enhanced hearing allowed him to detect what the three intruders no doubt believed to be their stealthy movements as they entered the dacha. Instead, Vladimir knew where each of them now were. One man had gone into the kitchen, another stood in the sitting room, and the third had chosen to move to the bottom of the stairs.

Vladimir’s nostrils flared as he breathed in their three scents. If anything, the scents of the two newcomers were even more rancid and unpleasant than the first because they spoke of a much deeper evil, as well as a hunger for inflicting pain and, ultimately, death.

Vladimir took on his dragon’s cloak of invisibility, which he usually only used during flight, before slowly making his way down the stairs.

As he had assessed, two of the men, the one standing at the bottom of the stairs and the one in the sitting room, were big and heavy beneath their winter clothing.

Vladimir didn’t recognize either of them.

Unfortunately, he easily recognized the smaller man, and his rancid scent, as he stood in the kitchen.

Pyotr Petrov, Tanya’s brother.

Tanya hadn’t liked being told, albeit silently, to stay upstairs like a good obedient woman. If Vladimir knew nothing else about her, he definitely knew by now that she was extremely stubborn and didn’t like being given orders.

And yet he had done exactly that when he indicated she should remain upstairs.

As if!

She had no idea what had woken Vladimir and prompted him to get out of bed before disappearing downstairs, but there was no way she was simply going to continue lying naked in bed while he went to deal with whatever danger he had sensed was there.

The naked part was easily dealt with: Tanya simply took some sweats and a T-shirt from the same drawer Vladimir had. The sweats were far too big for her, but wearable after she’d rolled the too-long legs up to her ankles and tied the drawstring tightly about her waist. The T-shirt was also too big and fell almost to her knees but at least it hid all the extra material gathered in at her waist.

Her movements weren’t anywhere near as stealthy as Vladimir’s, but she hoped they were quiet enough not to alert anyone as she left the bedroom before moving down the hallway.

She came to an abrupt halt a foot or so from the top of the stairs when she heard several exclamations of surprise, then the aggressive swearing of those same male