Dark Desire by Lauren Smith (7 ebook reader .TXT) 📕

“Elena, it’s safe. We have company. Good company.” Then he carefully peered over the edge of the bank.

It was empty. She was gone. His stomach plummeted as he feared his friends might have been followed.

“Stay where you are!” A shout rang out. Elena stood behind them, her back to the lodge, gun aimed at Maxim, who was closest to her.

“Well now, she’s a clever one,” Nicholas mused in Russian.

“Kiska, it’s safe. Phoenix . . . remember? This is Leo, Maxim, and Nicholas, the brothers of my heart.” Dimitri moved toward her, hands held up.

“These guys are your friends?”

“Kiska?” Maxim chuckled and continued speaking in Russian. “Dimitri, you have found your kitten at last, and you had to choose the one woman you can’t have.”

“What?” Dimitri responded.

“Not now, Max,” Leo interjected. “Let’s get the gun away from her before we break the news.”

Dimitri reached Elena and gently took the gun from her before he pulled her into his arms.

“Elena, this is Leo. That’s Maxim, and Nicholas is over there.” He pointed at all three of them. One by one, his friends put their right fists over their hearts, and each man knelt on one knee before Elena.

The next words they spoke changed his life forever.

“Klyanus' zhizn'yu tebe, poslednemu iz roda Romanovykh. Pravnuchka velikoy knyagini Anastasii.”

12

Elena stepped back when the three men knelt before her and Dimitri. They all spoke in Russian, but they weren’t words she had learned in her Russian language studies. She shot a glance at Dimitri, who was still as stone beside her. Whatever they’d said had swept over him like a powerful tide. Even though she couldn’t understand the words, she realized that everything had changed.

“What did they say? And why are they kneeling?” she asked.

Dimitri slowly released her from his gentle hold, and he moved to stand next to his friends. Elena’s stomach suddenly bottomed out. What was happening? What was he doing?

“Dimitri, what did they say?”

He cleared his throat. “They said they vow their lives to you, the last of the Romanovs, the great-granddaughter of Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna.”

There was only the glitter of stars above as Elena watched Dimitri join his brothers-in-arms by kneeling at her feet, one fist clenched over his heart.

It took a moment for what Dimitri had said to sink in. If her knees hadn’t locked just then, she would have fallen down.

“I am what?”

“You are the last . . . ,” Dimitri said. “The last of the direct imperial royal bloodline of the Romanovs.”

“But . . .” Elena had no words. What he had just said was impossible. They all continued to stare at her expectantly, still on bended knee.

“I can’t be . . . that’s not possible. She died. The Russian government said they found bone remnants of hers in a shallow grave.” Elena remembered that news story from when she’d been younger.

Leo spoke up. “Those findings were fabricated. They wanted to stop the rumors due to the current political unrest.”

“Wait, please tell me this is a joke.” She searched Dimitri’s face, which had gone as pale as the starlight.

“This is no joke, Your Grace,” Dimitri replied solemnly. That was when Elena realized he was serious.

No more kiska, no more teasing, no more sweet seductions. Some invisible barrier had just risen between them. The freedom she had felt so sure was in her grasp had now been ripped away, tossed upon the wind.

“Please, get up. All of you.” She waved at them, and they all stood. “This is ridiculous.”

“Your Grace,” Dimitri said uncertainly, and that was the worst part. She needed him to take charge, to be the man she’d come to rely on. But now he wanted her to be in charge? Some kind of royalty? It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t okay.

“Please, just all of you go inside and leave me alone for a minute.”

“You cannot stay out here alone . . . ,” Dimitri began.

“Then he’ll stay.” She pointed at Maxim. He seemed to be the quietest of the four, and she believed that he would give her some space.

“Max,” Dimitri said softly to his friend.

“She’ll be safe out here with me,” Maxim assured him.

Desperate for a moment alone, Elena turned and strode away. She stopped as she reached the picnic blanket. Only a short time ago, she and Dimitri had been lying here beneath the stars, ready to make love. The strength in her legs gave out, and she collapsed onto the blanket and buried her face in the pillow that still carried his scent.

This was a dream . . . or a nightmare. Something her exhausted imagination had conjured up after everything she had been through in the last few months. Anastasia died in Russia more than years ago. Elena was just a girl from Maine. A girl who had been adopted and, according to her DNA profile, was part Russian on her mother’s side.

But the descendent of Anastasia Romanov?

It was a fairy tale, one with blood and darkness in it. The Romanovs had been brutally murdered by Communist soldiers. The young duchesses had died slowly because of the royal jewels they had hidden in their corsets, and the soldiers had finished them off with bayonets. It had been a heartless, soulless murder of innocent people like Anastasia and her little brother Alexei, along with their three beautiful older sisters.

Elena closed her eyes, and thick tears rolled down her cheeks.

You are the last . . . Dimitri’s voice echoed in her mind.

She was a Romanov.

For her entire life, she had known she was adopted, but she’d only begun to wonder about her birth parents in the last few years. She’d had a wonderful childhood growing up. She wouldn’t give that up for anything. But now she had answers, terrifying ones, as to who she truly was. She thought of her mother, scared and alone as she gave birth only to die a few minutes later.

Who was she? Who was her father? The answers she had been given had only raised a dozen more questions.

She was barely aware of Maxim’s presence at first, but after a moment, she forced herself to sit up and face him.

“Why . . . why did