The Lost Barinov Dragon (Brothers of Ash and Fire Book 4)

Chapter 1-2

The assets were many, and they all blurred together as Mr. Bovill read them.

“Naomi Bellamy is to have a trust provided for her—$19 million—and upon her death, the remaining funds will go to her child, Tasha. Tasha shall receive a trust in the amount of $970 million, as well as ownership of all properties listed in Schedule A attached to this document. She is to have an advance on her trust, to be provided in cash, of $1 million.” The man tapped a finger on the suitcase. “Which I have brought you here.”

Tasha stared at the suitcase, then looked on in shock as Mr. Bovill continued.

“This is your copy of the will. I will be in touch with the remaining paperwork so we may begin the transfer of real estate assets to your name. Now, I’m afraid I must take my leave.”

Tasha was trembling as she accepted the paperwork from Mr. Bovill. A storm of pain was lashing against the walls of her heart as tears blurred her eyes, and she couldn’t read the words of the document.

The old man opened the door and then popped open his umbrella.

“You don’t need to—” Tasha began, but then she saw the rain. It was pouring from the skies in buckets. How had he known it was going to rain?

Her mother closed the door and faced Tasha.

Tasha stared at her mother, and for the first time she saw a stranger. This woman had always held secrets from her about her father, about his life, and now . . . now he was dead and she would never see him again. She would never have answers to the questions she had. Not from him.

Her hands shook, and she curled her fingers into fists to keep the flood of emotion contained.

Her mother’s shoulders dropped, and she let out a sigh. “Tasha, it’s time I told you about your father. It’s time I told you the truth.”

“What do you mean? Like how he was in the mob or something?” She’d suspected he was involved in something less than legal, given the money he was always leaving with them. Despite guessing that, she’d loved her father, loved every minute of the few precious days he’d been in her life and how he’d cared for her.

Her mother joined her on the couch and reached up to stroke her hair away from her face. “No, honey, he wasn’t in the mob.”

“But—”

“Just listen. Your father . . . wasn’t fully human. He was a dragon.”

Tasha laughed. “Mom, that’s not funny. I want you to tell me the truth.”

“I am.” Her mother squeezed her hands hard to get her attention. “Listen to me, Tasha. Your father, Dimitri Drakor, was a dragon shifter. A supernatural being more than three thousand years old . . .”

Four years later – Switzerland

Tasha Bellamy stared up at the peaks of the Swiss Alps. Wetterhorn, Schreckhorn, Mönch, and Jungfrau all reached up to the skies in glorious majesty. They towered like sleepy earth gods over the town of Grindelwald. Evening began to fall, bathing the peaks in alpenglühen, the alpenglow where the setting sun turned the mountains pink. She had arrived two days ago to free herself of worries on the slopes. For the last four years, she had been in a strange sort of melancholy. Ever since she’d learned of her father’s death, things hadn’t been the same. Only now was she trying to jolt herself out of the sadness his death had caused. For the first few years after he’d died, she’d buried herself in her web design work. But now she was desperate for open skies and views of the world she’d never seen before except in books and movies.

She closed her eyes for a brief moment, taking in a deep breath of clean mountain air. Her mother had insisted she stay in the United States and see the Grand Canyon or something closer, safer. If she’d had her way, Tasha would never leave the house.

Tasha had spent her whole life being “safe,” and she was done with it.

She was the daughter of Dimitri Drakor, a dragon shapeshifter. A man who had been more than three thousand years old. The sons the attorney had mentioned had been children he’d fathered by mating briefly with dragonesses, female dragon shifters, to create a stable group of dragons who could protect his territory from his enemies, especially the Barinovs.

Tasha’s mother, however, was completely human. She had been Dimitri’s only true romantic partner, the one he had chosen to marry in secret. So Tasha was technically half dragon. She had asked if she could change into a dragon, but her mother had shaken her head and explained that most human-dragon pairings could not produce a drakeling. Her father had sensed she had no dragon within her, and he had done all he could to protect her from the dangers of his world by keeping her and her mother safely hidden away.

Now she was out in the world traveling, seeing places she had always longed to visit and doing things she’d only ever dared to dream before. Tasha was certain that her father’s enemies, the Barinovs, wouldn’t come after her. She was a human female; she had no place in their world and was no threat to them. Her mother didn’t believe that, but Tasha didn’t care any longer. She felt she was safe, and she wasn’t going to hide for the rest of her life.

Life was too short to stay inside and hide. If she was going to die, she wanted to live first. After spending a month in England and then a month in France, touring the bigger cities and the countryside, she had just arrived two days ago in Switzerland to see the Alps. And it had been worth the tricky travel plans to get to her hotel and then to the mountains for skiing.

She tilted her head back, staring up at the terrifying cliff face of what the locals called “the death wall.” Back in 2006, the ice caps on the mountain had melted and sent rocks and snow crashing down the mountainside, almost crushing the town of Grindelwald. The little town had escaped disaster by a hair’s breadth.

The old Tasha would have trembled at the thought of skiing next to a mountain like that, but after she’d learned the truth, a lot of things held a lot less fear for her. The things that scared her now were the dragons themselves, but according to her mother they were dying out, unable to find mates or adapt to the modern world. The old magic, the magic that had helped give birth to dragons, was vanishing.

Tasha didn’t know what that kind of magic was, but this world, with its Alpine glowing sunsets, was all the magic she needed.

She followed the other skiers up in the gondolas toward the slopes and held her poles tight in her hands. She’d spent the last two days on the bunny slopes with a private instructor, and he’d said she was a natural. She did like going fast, flying down the slopes. It was as close to truly flying as she imagined it could be.

Now she was ready to face the steeper hills, even a few moguls. The ski lift dropped her off, and she saw signs for night skiing pointing toward a trail that led to the far side of the mountain. She might try that one run in the evening before it got too dark. The slopes of the Eiger were already illuminated with floodlights, and she used her poles to guide herself toward the first snow-covered slope.

She felt a strange tingling sensation at the back of her mind and paused. It felt like something had fluttered. The sensation was so faint, Tasha thought she must be imagining it, but as she turned away from the slope and stared up at the mountain, it grew stronger, like a butterfly was inside her head, batting its soft wings against the prison of her skull, trying to get free.

A moment later, the mountain groaned. The rocks around her shook like an old dog waking from sleep and shaking its body to rid itself of a dusting of snow. Her eyes drifted up in mute shock as she saw the shelf of snow far above her breaking off . . . tumbling down . . . and crashing into more snow, creating a tidal wave of deadly white froth.

Avalanche.

Everything happened so fast. People started to run and scream and kick off their skis. But all she saw was the snow barreling toward her, and it rooted her in place.

Then, everything seemed to explode around her like a fierce snowstorm rather than a deadly wave of hard snow and rock. The storm raced past her, knocking her on her back and winding her, but she was otherwise fine. Her skis slid down the slope, far out of reach. She lay on her back, feeling the snow swirling around her.

A man’s voice echoed through the storm. “This way!” She lifted her head, seeking the source of it.

A shadowy figure was waving at her, but she couldn’t make out any of his features. She scrambled to her feet, struggling to wade through the thick snow in her ski boots. She hurried up the slight incline where the man had stood, but he seemed to be walking away from her.

“Wait! I’m coming!” She didn’t want to be left alone in this weather—such strange weather, too. Was an avalanche supposed to do that? Explode into a snowstorm? Had it even been an avalanche at all? She kept trudging through the powdery snow until it gave way to icy rock.

What the hell? She glanced about. The man she had chased after was gone, and somehow she had made it to the rocky side of the Eiger. She had gotten turned about and climbed toward the mountain when she should have been moving away from it. She turned around, but all she saw now was snow blowing in a cloud over her. If she walked away from the mountain and into that storm, she could get lost and die.

She leaned back against the rock behind her, shivering as the temperature continued to drop.

“Help!” she screamed, but her cry was swallowed by the dense snowstorm.

She closed her eyes, filled with an unexplainable anger, anger at being trapped here and dying just when she had finally started to live. This time when she screamed for help, the sound came from somewhere deep within her, a place she’d never been aware of.

The mountain rumbled, the stone behind her crumbling away so that she fell backward. Tasha barreled down a tunnel of ice and rock, banging her head and cracking her ski goggles. She landed on the ground with a hard, pained grunt. When she was finally able to sit up, she removed her gloves and tossed the broken goggles aside, then touched tentative fingertips to her forehead. She hissed in pain.

Tasha glanced around, trying to get a sense of where she had fallen. A distant light came from the hole above where she had tumbled through and reflected off the icy walls, giving her some light to see by. It was a cave inside the mountain. Spears of ice hung from the ceiling, and a faint scent that smelled wonderful teased her nose. It smelled familiar, but she couldn’t place why.

“Oh my God . . .” Little clouds puffed out as she whispered in awe. She put her gloves back on before her fingers froze and got up, hobbling awkwardly in her ski boots. The click of her steps echoed all around her. The chamber was vast, and as it continued on, less light illuminated it, until it faded into an inky darkness. Her rational brain screamed at her to stay right where she was and not wander deeper into the tunnel, but some invisible force pulled her forward.