Vladimir (Russian Dragon Heat #1) - Carole Mortimer Page 0,6

could be forgiven for not remembering sooner. It had been many years, and much had happened, since her mother read her the bedtime story of the girl locked away by a sorceress in a tower in the woods. Of how the girl’s golden hair had eventually grown until it was long enough for its length to drop from the window, and so allow the prince of her dreams to use it to climb up and visit with her.

Not that Tanya’s hair was golden or grown down to her ankles as thick as a rope, but her dark locks had certainly grown longer during the months of being kept a prisoner in the turreted east tower of the Romanovs’ winter palace.

Mainly because the two servants who brought her food and removed and returned her laundry every day had obviously also been instructed not to allow Tanya any sharp instruments. Her meals were always accompanied by plastic utensils rather than metal. Her request for scissors to cut her hair had also been ignored, no doubt in the belief she might try to use them to either harm someone or make her escape.

Except she felt no inclination to hurt either of the couple that cared for her. And even if she did manage to escape, the possibility of her surviving the harshness of the Russian winter outside the warmth of the palace would be nil.

She had been brought here three months ago straight from the apartment she shared with Pyotr, and so hadn’t brought any of her clothes or belongings with her. Consequently, she had no outer clothing, only the sweaters and jeans her captors had provided for her, and the snow was at least four or five feet thick on the ground in the woods and surrounding countryside. A countryside that echoed with the howls of wolves during the long nights.

Similar wolves to the ones the authorities insisted had killed Tanya’s parents.

Even knowing Romanov dragons were really the ones responsible hadn’t given Tanya any desire to venture out into those woods alone, day or night.

Tanya would be lying to herself if she didn’t admit, having now met the Romanov brothers, that they were all devastatingly handsome. The eldest, Vladimir, was the epitome of tall, dark, and fiercely dangerous.

And something about him stirred an inexplicable and unwanted heat inside Tanya. A reaction she shied away from acknowledging, even to herself. As much as she shied away from him.

Consequently it was the youngest dragon-shifter brother, Vaughn, she had chosen as the target for the revenge of her parents’ deaths.

Not only had Vaugh escaped Tanya’s knife, but he had quickly recovered from the wound she’d managed to inflict, and Tanya and Pyotr had been taken prisoner.

Tanya had no idea where Pyotr was now, probably locked away in another of the Romanovs’ remote private residences, awaiting the same death sentence she was.

The saddest part was that, without family or friends, neither of them would be missed, let alone searched for.

Tanya stilled as the monotonous terrain of white outside the window was suddenly changed by the appearance of a black SUV being driven rapidly down the road that led only to this palace. The road was kept clear by the male servant after each snowfall, presumably so that he could make the drive out to collect food supplies once a week.

She couldn’t see who was driving the black vehicle, but as there hadn’t been a single visitor here since she was incarcerated, surely it had to finally be one of the dragon shifter bastards?

Strange… She had expected when one of the brothers did arrive, they would fly majestically across the sky in dragon form, if only so as to reawaken the fear inside Tanya. A fear she admitted had lessened slightly as the weeks and then months went by without a sighting of a single Romanov brother, neither in human nor dragon form.

If it was one of the Romanov brothers behind the wheel of the SUV, then no doubt he had finally arrived to carry out the death sentence the family had decided was to be her fate.

Tanya had been expecting this for months. More recently she’d even started to pray for it.

Admittedly, her accommodation was more luxurious than the five-star hotel she’d worked in as a chambermaid the previous summer.

The ceiling above her was painted with frescoes similar to those she’d seen in photographs of grand cathedrals. There was a seating area at one end of the bedroom, with a deep brown leather couch for relaxing