The Courtship of Jena Makarov

Our tale opens on the very public celebration of the engagement of Jena Makarov to Mikhail Deriabin, a media tycoon and a useful political ally of Jenas father the Tsar. The couple are travelling in an open Landau receiving the slightly forced adulation of the public, accompanied by the Tsar and Julianna Makarov, Jenas younger sister. Julianna is distictly unimpressed with her sisters' choice of husband and the 2 sisters bicker openly.

Suddenly the procession comes under attack from a group of Neo Communist terrorists, the Tsars bodyguards are killed in a volley of gunfire, but the royal family themselves are saved by a mysterious new bodyguard who quickly dispatches the terrorists before introducing himself to the party.

The Tsar introduces Jena to her new personal bodyguard, Nikolai Dante.

Jena is unimpressed and Dantes continuing innuendos about their relationship do nothing to sweeten her mood.

We cut to later , in the Tsars personal baths. The Tsar is explaining to Pyre, his own bodyguard, exactly why he has made such a controversial choice for his own daughters safety. The Tsar is well aware of Dantes' feelings for Jena it seems and he knows full well that he will die rather than see her harmed, thus making him an ideal choice for the job. Despite Jenas' feelings on the matter.

Jena makes her opinion of Dante quite clear the next morning, when she wakes up to find him camping in her bedchamber. Along with Julianna , they head to the dressmakers for a fitting of Jenas' wedding dress. Though they seem to be bickering constantly. Julianna finds this all highly amusing.

Dante, Jena and Julianna retreat to Caste Volga in preparation for the big day, but Julianna has other plans as Dante discovers when he finds her waiting for him, in his bed. Dante resists the temptation however and finds in Juliannas determination, the will to go and finally confront Jena with his own feelings. Dante makes a dramatic entrance but finds a dispirited Jena. Feeling trapped into her forthcoming marriage and unable to resist Dantes declaration of love, they kiss. The moment is short lived however as they almost immediately start bickering again and Jena reveals that it was she who had orchestrated the publicity campaign to discredit Dante. Dante misjudges his moment and ends up storming from Jenas' bedchamber in disgust, his crude advances are rejected yet again. Suddenly shots erupt from above and Dante is forced to duck for cover, someone is attacking the palace!

A heavily armed squad of mercenaries storms the palace battlements, they seem to be deliberately causing as much bloodshed as possible. The palaces' supposedly impregnable security system is mysteriously silent. Dante and Jena rush to his room to get Julianna and then to the hangar to get hold of an escape vehicle. They are too late, the hangar is under the control of the mercenaries, though strangely when Dante succeeds in cutting them down, their armoured bodies are spontaneously incinerated, leaving no trace of their ever having been there. Dante is confronted by the leader of the mercenaries and they have a short and brutal fight, the leader grabs Jena as a hostage and Dante lets his guard down momentarly, just long enough for him to be seriously wounded. He lies bleeding heavily on the deck as Jena is captured by 'The Beast of Tunguska' and he is powerless to protect her. As a parting shot, the Beast kicks Dante off the roof deck and into the cold dark waters of the Volga river below.

Julianna watches aghast, unable to help her sister and in some peril herself, she dives off the roof into the river after Dante. Swimming strongly she manages to retrieve our stricken hero and drag him to the shore. She saves his life, but he is distraught over his failure to save Jena, just as he had failed to save his wife Eloise months before. Dante is dragged away by Imperial Raven Corps troops, to be tried for his seeming complicity in the abduction of the Tsarina.

We cut to Mikhail Deriabin , at the centre of his media hive, watching the proceedings with amused interest. He confers with his right hand man Zubatov about the raid and it seems that the whole thing was organised by Deriabin himself.

Meanwhile in the Tunguska Alienation Zone in Siberia, Jena is confronted by her abductor Sir Richard Hawksmoore, the Beast of Tunguska. Formerly a high ranking military commander in the Tsars forces, he was also one of Jenas tutors. Now disgraced and living as a mercenary with a small army of thugs at his command he seeks to redeem himself and claim the only thing that he now feels is his due, his former betrothed, Jena Makarov herself.

Dante returns to the Tsars' Chamber of Judgement in the Imperial Palace ( see book 1 ), again as a prisoner, but this time charged with high treason, complicity in Jenas' kidnapping and the slaughter of a Raven Corps regiment. Lord Pyre is Prosecutor, arguing that it was Dante who had sabotaged the security system. Mikhail Deriabin is brought on as a witness and backs up Pyres' case. Dimitri, Konstantin and Andreas Romanov look on as holograhic projections, unable to do much more than issue hollow threats as the case is stacked against Dante. It quickly becomes obvious that this is little more than a political showtrial and that Dante is being made a scapegoat. Julianna argues Dantes defence to her father, who seemingly merciful, grants Dante a stay of judgement on the condition that Dimitri delivers Jena to him in 24 hours as a mark of their loyalty. Dimitri refuses to play ball with this and declares the 2 noble houses at war. The Tsar sends Dante down to his Genelabs for dissection, to study the Romanov Weapons Crest, his goal all along.

Pyre is entrusted with the task of bringing Dante to the lab , along with 3 Ravens. As they travel through the Palaces' vast hangar area, Dante starts to needly Pyre on the subject of Maralis, Pyres girlfriend, whome Dante killed. Pyre is goaded to the point of lashing out at Dante in anger, thus giving our hero the opprtunity to retrieve his Huntsman and quickly dispatch the 3 guards. The transporter crashes hard and Dante is thrown clear, landing on a parked Ravenwing. Still chained he makes his escape from the palace, hotly pursued by a detachment of Ravens. Despite his best efforts , Dantes flight is cut short as the Ravens succeed in downing him in the streets of St Petersburgh. Things look bad until suddenly a blade flashes out from the darkness and Dantes' assailants are all beheaded as one. Andreas Romanov walks onto the scene to survey his handywork.

Dante is intially overjoyed to see his favourite half brother, but is quickly disillusioned when Andreas reveals that his orders from Dimitri are not necessarily to bring Dante back alive. Dante pleads his case and Andreas' sentimental side prevails.

Meanwhile the noble houses are gearing up for war, Jena is still a prisoner, albeit a very uncooperative one and Mikhail Deriabin sits smug in the centre of his self orchestrated media frenzy.

Dante starts his search for Jena by interrogating Zubatov, Deriabins man, finding it suspicious that Deriabin was so keen to see him as a scapegoat for the kidnapping. His search leads him to the Bolshoi Studios outside St Petersburg where he manages to organise a meeting with Hawksmoore and Jena, but in the guise of Zubatov. Dante proves not to be a master of subterfuge however and he is quickly found out, a pitched battle ensues as the Tunguska mercenaries try to kill Dante. Dante manages to temporarily get them out of the way and confronts Jena, though he foolishly lets Hawksmoore blindside him and get away with Jena again in Deriabins airship. Jena finally confronts her betrothed and her abductor. Deriabin reveals his plans to start a war between the 2 rival imperial houses in order to first capitalise on the conflict through his media empire, then when both sides are sufficiently weakened, he would assume the reigns of power himself. The marriage with Jena was merely a subterfuge.

You can't keep a good man down however, as Dante has managed to follow the fleeing airship using the anti gravity generators in a floating billboard. He aims the giant sign at the airship, the ensuing collision and explosion catapults him headlong onto Deriabins ship.

Somewhere else entirely, Julianna Makarovs carriage is stopped on a quiet country lane, Juliannas' personal maid Ingrid Wagner breaks down as she realises what is going to happen. Julianna gets out of the carriage to find her Raven Corps escort slaughtered and Konstantin Romanov standing over the smoking corpses. Konstantin kills her where she stands, Ingrid Wagner is left to mourn over the body of Julianna, the mistress she betrayed.

Back on board the terminally damaged airship. Deriabin is finding his mercenray Hawksmoore to be less than pliable, Hawkmoore, obviously going a bit crazy, cuts down Deriabin, seeing him as a rival for Jenas affections. Dante appears in time to challenge Hawksmoore and get Jena to safety. The couple make sincere declarations of love to each other , then Jena flees, letting Dante take on Hawksmoore alone.

The 2 men fight brutally aboard the airship as it falls slowly earthward. A catastrophic explosion erupts as the airship hits the sea. Jena can only look on in horror as Dantes jacket floats to the surface. She assumes that he has died in the inferno.

We cut forward in time to a small fishermans cottage on the baltic coast. Jene is holed up there waiting to be picked up, drying her clothes by the wood stove.

The door bursts open to reveal a very bedraggled and angry Nikolai Dante.

Dante blames Jena for leaving him to swim to shore from the wreck of the airship, they end up having a fistfight which quickly turns into something more intimate, much more intimate. They talk about themselves and their future together, Dantes fear of commitment and their respective families, but mostly they just make love.

The next day a refugee convoy marches past the cottage in the pouring rain, Jena runs out to ask them what has happened.

A man tells Jena about Juliannas' murder and the fact that the houses of Romanov and Makarov are now at war, shocked Jena sinks to the ground unable to comprehend what has happened. Dante tries to comfort her, but Jena reacts angrily " We can't run from who we are Kolya." and she leaves Dante standing , his brief dream washing away in the rain