Legendary Wolf
Barbara J. Hancock
The girl he’d loved…has become a woman he despisesOnce upon a time, Anna was an orphan girl, her only friend a shifter. Then the red wolf Soren Romanov learned that the girl he loved was the daughter of his family’s greatest foe… Now grown and beginning to master her own power, Anna knows that only Soren can help her stop a great evil. Can he learn to trust the woman—and the witch—she’s become?
The girl he’d loved...
...has become a woman he despises
Once upon a time, Anna was an orphan girl, her only friend a shifter. Then the red wolf Soren Romanov learned that the girl he loved was the daughter of his family’s greatest foe… Now grown and beginning to master her own power, Anna knows that only Soren can help her stop a great evil. Can he learn to trust the woman—and the witch—she’s become?
BARBARA J. HANCOCK lives in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, where her daily walk takes her to the edge of the wilderness and back again. When Barbara isn’t writing modern gothic romance that embraces the shadows with a unique blend of heat and heart, she can be found wrangling twin boys and spoiling her pets.
Also by Barbara J. Hancock (#u740aa1bc-7ca5-5be8-8708-468e96d63461)
Brimstone Seduction
Brimstone Bride
Brimstone Prince
Legendary Shifter
Darkening Around Me
Silent Is the House
The Girl in Blue
Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Legendary Wolf
Barbara J. Hancock
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ISBN: 978-1-474-08215-0
LEGENDARY WOLF
© 2018 Barbara J. Hancock
Published in Great Britain 2018
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF
All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.
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www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
For the believers.
And for those that want to believe.
Hang on—you’ve got this.
Contents
Cover (#u620206b9-42e5-59de-a88e-881638c0df7e)
Back Cover Text (#u62dee737-3c28-57ce-9938-3b6021ba0848)
About the Author (#ub8746b88-04b6-5f33-933b-4704f945bffa)
Booklist (#ua139246f-2c08-5982-a230-48ebbad116fe)
Title Page (#uc4bbc5f8-8d85-533e-a204-01cac5ca5dfe)
Copyright (#u6fdc5527-5475-55bc-90ba-e3b8982e9443)
Dedication (#uebf17029-282c-554e-9698-446875b888dd)
Chapter 1 (#ua69c745e-ec76-5c83-9276-7cd0a00ad9b8)
Chapter 2 (#u0c0db891-da50-5325-aadb-afb80ec1acb9)
Chapter 3 (#ua0a635ce-def1-5481-8d00-e643eb716fa7)
Chapter 4 (#u02761048-f7e7-52f4-b25d-953c1ed41f9b)
Chapter 5 (#u0ac752db-bb37-5b13-9f22-7fc6b386cf8c)
Chapter 6 (#u02a59ea7-007b-50da-8293-cd43c8302b97)
Chapter 7 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 8 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 17 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 18 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 19 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 20 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 21 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 22 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 23 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 24 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 25 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 26 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 27 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 28 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 29 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 30 (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 1 (#u740aa1bc-7ca5-5be8-8708-468e96d63461)
The thick evergreen wood was nearly impenetrable save for the hollowed-out paths that wound through the snarled low-hanging branches and twisted tree trunks. Wild animals had made the paths—the deer headed for clearings where grass and water could be found, and the predators, who naturally followed in the deer’s footsteps, hungry for hot blood.
Anna was neither predator nor prey, although she was on the hunt.
It was dawn and a cool, damp mist rose around her and the gnarled spruce trunks as the sunrise heated the mountain air. The white fog curling down the same pathways she tried to traverse contributed to the forest’s shadows. It would disperse eventually. It was autumn and the temperature would rise high enough to dry the air, even in the Carpathian Mountains of Romania, where the chill of winter settled in earlier than elsewhere.
But it wasn’t warm yet.
Her breath, quickened by the uncertainty of low visibility, came from her parted lips in visible puffs. The hood of her scarlet cloak protected her hair from the damp, but the cool misty air still managed to brush her face and encroach with fingerlike tendrils on her neck and chest. Her hands were encased in long black leather gloves. They kept her fingers warm...although that was merely a side benefit.
She might be forced to take them off.
She dreaded taking them off here, of all places, but she would if she had to.
There were wolves in these woods. Natural ones that posed a certain amount of danger and the deadly unnatural ones she sought. Those were the ones that made her dread taking off her gloves while possibly making their removal necessary all at the same time.
She clenched her hands into fists at the thought of using her newfound Volkhvy abilities at all, but against one legendary wolf in particular.
The forest was silent around her.
No birds called. No breeze stirred the evergreen needles. Only the silent mist swirled and eddied as if it was caught in the maze created by massive trees and winding pathways. Anna felt trapped, too, but it was a familiar feeling. One she was well used to accepting and persisting through. She’d been trapped in a cursed castle for centuries. This ancient wood was nothing in comparison.
Or, at least, it would be nothing in comparison, if she weren’t here to find Soren Romanov.
Her connection to the Romanov wolves—and the red Romanov wolf in particular—was a decidedly tortuous entrapment. She’d wanted to avoid Soren for the rest of her life after they’d discovered that her mother was the Light Volkhvy queen, Vasilisa, who had cursed the Romanovs for centuries.
The Volkhvy were a race of witches that drew their power from the Ether, an invisible plane that surrounded the earth with energy. But the Ether was like a black hole. Its vacuum expelled energy and, at the same time, it took. Light witches managed this hunger carefully, most of the time. Dark witches...didn’t. And sometimes even a Light Volkhvy could be consumed by the Ether’s Darkness.
Her mother was a powerful witch who had made Dark decisions and her actions had cost Anna and the Romanovs tremendous pain and sacrifice. Elena Pavlova and Ivan Romanov’s love had defied the Light Volkhvy queen’s rage. They had broken Vasilisa’s curse six months ago.
But all was not forgiven.
Soren’s rejection of Anna following the revelation of her blood when the curse was broken would haunt her forever—and witches, like legendary wolves, lived a very long time.
She had embraced her new name and accepted her position as the Light Volkhvy princess because this was her life now. There was no place for her with the Romanovs.
If she could stay far away from the red wolf who had once been her most loyal companion, she might be able to recover. She might be able to come to grips with the power in her blood and maybe even learn to control it. She might forget Soren...eventually.
But the emerald sword had other ideas.
Even now, with her chest rising and falling too quickly in almost-panicked respiration, the sword’s Call couldn’t be ignored.
Her mother had created the legendary Romanov shifters as champions of the Light Volkhvy. With her magic, she had crafted three enchanted swords for the warrior women who would eventually become the enchanted shifters’ wives. The sapphire sword had Called Soren’s brother’s mate from across impossible time and distance to fight by his side. Elena was a human, but she had risked her life to find Bronwal and the legendary black wolf so he could help her defeat an evil witchblood prince who stalked her. She and Ivan had then worked together to break Vasilisa’s curse.
It was cruel irony that the red wolf’s sword would decide to Call the one woman who would prefer to stay as far away from the Romanovs as possible.
Her.
They had been her friends and companions. The red wolf had helped her survive a curse that had trapped her at Bronwal. The curse had threatened her life and her sanity for hundreds of years. Waiting to see Soren Romanov’s human face again had helped her endure.
Only to have him turn away from her in his wolf form and desert her once the curse was broken—because as the curse broke, it was revealed that Vasilisa was her mother.
Anna was a witch.
She’d had to deal with the red wolf’s desertion, and at the same time she’d nearly been overcome by the horror of her true parentage. He had run. But, she’d had nowhere to run from the horrible truth and no one to run away with.
Anna had come to a place in the forest where the path widened because it intersected with several other paths. Those trails led off in different directions, then disappeared as if the thick woods they tried to penetrate swallowed them.
She flexed her leather-encased fingers. The gloves on her hands helped to focus and contain the fledgling powers she was only beginning to understand. She hadn’t had the luxury of rejecting who and what she truly was. Her Volkhvy heritage was in her blood. Once she knew, it couldn’t be ignored.
She’d thought herself an orphan for too long.
Soren’s father, Vladimir Romanov, had kidnapped her and kept her as insurance against the queen he planned to overthrow. Anna had grown up alongside his children as a foundling they called “Bell.” She’d been ignorant of her witch heritage. When her mother had learned of Vladimir’s part in destroying the village where her baby daughter had been hidden from the threat of the Dark Volkhvy, she had cursed Bronwal to punish Vladimir for “killing” her daughter. Anna had been caught up in the curse, as well.
The knowledge that she was loved so much that her mother would weave a horrible curse as punishment for her supposed murder was a hot knot in her chest that was composed as much out of relief as it was of guilt.
But she was also filled with fear. She wasn’t just any witch; she was the daughter of the most powerful witch in existence. How could she trust herself to use the power her own mother had abused?
She forced the tingling in her fingers to ease off. She willed away the energy she inadvertently tried to channel because of her nerves. Before she’d discovered her identity, her powers had been dormant. Once her mother had begun her training, the power was always there, just beneath the surface of her skin, waiting to be released. It was entirely up to her to keep the energy she could channel in check. As she focused on control, the silence in the forest screamed a warning that roared deep in her ears along with the pounding of her heart.
There were wolves in the quiet wood.
She carefully picked her way down the path, heeding the warning that flared at the edges of her perceptions. She wasn’t alone. Ivan was busy at Bronwal. He and his new wife, Elena, were helping all the people who had survived the curse reclaim a modern life. She’d been there first and witnessed the construction, education and modernization that Vasilisa herself was helping to bring about as she tried to make amends.
That left Anna alone in the woods with Ivan’s brothers, the red wolf...and the white.
Coming back here was a mistake.
Her pounding heart most dreaded seeing Soren again, but her head knew that Lev—the white wolf—posed the greatest danger. He was feral. Completely out of touch with the man he’d once been. If it wasn’t for Soren, she would already have her gloves off and her hands would be free in case the white wolf decided to go from stalking to attack.
She could feel hungry eyes on her back. She’d tried to dismiss the feeling as imagination, but it persisted. Gooseflesh rose on the back of her neck, and it wasn’t the damp air that made her shiver. While she hunted for Soren, she was being stalked herself. Something was definitely out there, hiding in the trees and shadows. It might be the white wolf. Watching and waiting for the perfect moment to attack.
At the castle, they had told her that Soren was out looking for Lev. That he spent every waking moment trying to catch his wild twin brother and bring him back home. Coming into the woods after Soren Romanov had felt like a risk she had to take, but now she wasn’t so sure.
Suddenly, a long ululating cry broke the silence.
The howl came from far away, rising and falling in a weak, thready tone that she immediately pegged as coming from a natural wolf’s throat. She’d heard the Romanov wolves howl. Their shift from human form to wolf could shake the earth. Their vocalizations were much more powerful than this one. The weak howl fell away to nothing, and silence reigned once more.
Mist swirled. Shadows lurked. Her ears strained to pick up the slightest sound.
Every instinct she possessed screamed that she wasn’t alone, even as the hush deepened around her.
The sudden howl had caused her to freeze. Adrenaline rushed to her extremities and, in spite of her cloak, she shivered again against its cool, familiar flow beneath her skin. Her fear had helped her survive Bronwal during the curse. Now it caused her to stand motionless for only a moment before she reached to remove a glove. She couldn’t afford to be frozen by fear. She had to be fueled by it.
The long shafts of her leather gloves reached almost to her elbows. She pushed the left glove down to her wrist, but then another noise interrupted its removal.
A step sounded behind her.
A twig snapped.
She registered the quality of the sound before she whirled to face her stalker.
The snap had been caused by the tread of a boot, not a paw.
Her fingers fell away from the loosened glove. She hadn’t fully removed it. It was abandoned in a bunch around her wrist. She forgot her intention to free her magic as her hands dropped to her sides. They fisted in response to a strange yet hauntingly familiar face as a man materialized from the shadowy path behind her.
She should be glad it wasn’t Lev.
She should be relieved she wasn’t facing the feral white wolf.
As her chest tightened until she could hardly breathe, it wasn’t relief that claimed her. The large man who stepped toward her seemed as feral as the wolf she’d expected, and his altered appearance stabbed through her with a jolt of shocked recognition that pinned her in place.
She’d last seen Soren as her beloved companion, the red wolf. Before that, she remembered him as the handsome teenager who had been her loyal friend. They’d grown up together at Bronwal before the curse fell. She’d been an orphan. He’d been one of the legendary Romanov wolves, practically royal but somehow also hers.
The man who stalked her now had a heavy thundercloud brow and a mane of wild red hair around his bearded face. He was well over six feet tall with a muscular build and broad shoulders. He was Soren, but he wasn’t her Soren. He was changed. She backed up several paces until her spine came up against a tree. Its old, solid trunk wouldn’t allow her to retreat any farther.
This man was different, but as he approached she could see the giant wolf she’d known so well in his coloring and his movements. He was large but graceful. He was furious, but his fury was contained. She’d seen the red wolf stand against the Dark Volkhvy in just this way hundreds of times before. She had gloried in this moment, again and again. She had seen him confront and drive off countless marauders intent on stealing his brother’s enchanted blade.
The difference was that she had been by his side then and not the object of his fury.
“You aren’t welcome here, Volkhvy. Why have you come back?” Soren asked.
His voice. His human voice. When she’d heard it last, the world had been so much younger. There hadn’t been airplanes or automobiles. There hadn’t been blue jeans or cell phones. She had believed in loyalty and friendship. They had survived the passage of centuries together until his reaction to the truth had torn them apart. And now he sounded like an angry stranger. His voice was hard and rough. He spoke as if he’d howled alone at the moon far too many times.
“I had to come. There’s something you need to know,” Anna said. Her voice didn’t waver. Her whole body trembled from the shock of seeing him as her adversary, but her voice was as firm as it had to be. So much had changed, and she wasn’t sure if she would ever be comfortable with the power in her blood, but she had faced down a curse without cowering. She wouldn’t be timid now when she most needed to stand.
“There’s nothing you have to say that I need to hear,” Soren said. Shock had stabbed her, but it was his sharp words that penetrated the tightness in her chest. With every harsh syllable, he found the tenderness she hid, and the arrows kept coming. Her heart was pierced a thousand times, but she didn’t sink to the ground. In fact, she straightened away from the trunk she’d used as support longer than she should have. She stood, straight and tall. He didn’t need to see her distress at his transformation. She didn’t need to show him her fear or her pain.
Because it was pain that burgeoned outward from her heart like spreading blood from a seeping wound.
His rejection wasn’t new, but seeing it up close was almost more than she could bear.
“There’s something you have to hear. Whether either of us wants to talk to each other or not,” Anna said.
He’d stalked closer and closer to her as she spoke. She refused to step back again. Besides, there was nowhere left to go. She’d left his rejection behind. She’d left to go to her mother’s royal seat on an island off the coast of Scotland, but the sword’s Call had found her. She wouldn’t retreat anymore. There was no point. She couldn’t run away from this or him. She had to face it.
Anna forced air in and out of her lungs. She firmed her resolve and lowered her eyes to her gloves. Carefully, as if she hadn’t a care in the world, she straightened the shaft of the one she had begun to pull off. She smoothed the black leather back up her forearm and into place. As she smoothed, she tamped down the power she’d been prepared to summon from the Ether if she’d had to. Her control felt too tenuous. Her fear burgeoned as she wondered if she was already becoming too like her mother. Her hood had fallen back. The rising mist moistened the dark brown curls around her face.
She’d worn Soren’s cap once. She’d worn it for a long time. She’d saved it for him, but now his head was bare.
He was a full-grown man who hadn’t needed her to save a boy’s cap after all.
Soren had stopped several feet away from her. Close enough so that she had to raise her chin when she was finally in control enough to look into his eyes. His face was shadowed in the dark forest and by the unbound waves of his red hair, but she could see the amber of his irises. His gaze narrowed when she boldly met it and searched it for the person she had known.
To no avail.
This Soren Romanov was not her friend or her loyal wolf companion. He was recognizable to her only because she would know him in any form, anywhere. Her soul knew his. Every cell in her body was attuned to every cell in his. The connection that had once saved her was cruel now.
They were enemies.
His pause was more obviously tense than hers. His whole body was stiff and still. He towered over her and held himself in place with an iron will, but he wasn’t calm. He seemed seconds away from the howl that roughened his voice.
“I have no time for you or for talking. My brother hasn’t come home since the curse was lifted. I was as close as I’ve come to luring him home when you came into the woods this morning,” Soren said. “No one at Bronwal wants to see you. Least of all my brothers or me. Especially Lev. You know he’s gone feral. He won’t suffer a witch in our midst. He will see you as the enemy.”
No other arrows were required; her heart was destroyed. There was nothing of that soft organ left. Only its weak ghost kept her alive with shallow beats, only her hardened core of determination kept her on her feet, as it always had. She was a woman honed by a curse. It didn’t matter if he didn’t trust her. It didn’t matter if she barely trusted herself. She still had her feet planted firmly on the ground.
And she had a job to do.
Soren might be her enemy, but she had other friends and loved ones at Bronwal. People who needed her to do the right thing, even if it hurt, to try to protect them and make up for the mistakes her mother had made.
“If the Dark Volkhvy are allowed to keep the emerald sword, peace won’t be possible at Bronwal. A Dark witch might manage to tap into the sword’s ability to enhance and channel the Ether’s energy even more powerfully than a witch can channel the Ether itself. With the sword, a Dark leader might take control of all Volkhvy. Hate me if you must, but know there is a much worse threat at your door. At your brothers’ doors,” Anna said. “Your emerald sword has been taken, and it must be retrieved.”
She had some pride and a healthy bit of self-preservation. She didn’t tell him that the sword’s Call had come for her. She didn’t tell him that by rejecting her, he’d rejected his destined mate. Destiny or not, she disagreed with the sword. There was no way a witch could be the mate of a Romanov wolf. Not after all that had happened. And there was no safe way for her to wield a Romanov sword as a witch. She couldn’t deny her heritage, but that didn’t mean she was going to trust her fledgling power to join with an enchanted object that held that much sway over Soren Romanov’s fate.
The truth was her Volkhvy blood was too powerful to be trusted with the sword’s enchantment. She was already struggling to learn how to control her abilities. Connecting with the sword would only make her more powerful. The possibility that she would become like her mother, leaning toward Dark uses of her powers, was a constant worry. As if the Volkhvy part of her blood carried a chill throughout her body with every beat of her heart. She’d spent her entire life fearing witches. Now she lived more closely with that fear than ever before.
She stood, flayed inside, as she offered him her help, not as an old friend, but as a Light Volkhvy witch with no choice. She couldn’t repair what her mother had done. She could only control her abilities with an iron will and continue to fight against Dark witches who might do worse than her mother had ever imagined if one managed to connect with the enchanted blade.
“Your mother’s evil enchantments are no longer my concern. I left the sword hidden in a deep ravine on a battlefield long ago when I abandoned my human form during the curse,” Soren said. “But if you haven’t noticed, I’m a man, not a wolf now, and your mother is no longer my queen.”
His voice was a threatening growl, low and angry. He looked ready to tear the forest apart rather than finish their conversation.
“I see you,” Anna said. This time her reply came out as a whisper. She couldn’t help it. She’d waited to see his human face for so long. It was torturous to see it now that she knew Volkhvy blood coursed through her veins. Soren didn’t trust witches. He certainly wouldn’t trust the daughter of Vasilisa. How could she blame him when she didn’t yet trust herself?
Her eyes tracked hungrily over his features. She couldn’t stop the perusal. Yes, she was a witch who, as yet, had no idea what that might mean for her future. Yes, he was angry and wild, a man with an enchanted wolf barely beneath the surface of his skin. But he was also beloved to her memories. She couldn’t help the desire to compare and contrast and seek whatever familiarity she could find.
His damp, dark lashes blinked beneath her appraisal as if he was startled by her penetrating stare. His eyes glowed golden as a stray sunbeam managed to find its way through the forest canopy over their heads. In spite of his anger and his bitter words, she wanted to brush his unkempt hair back from his angular face. She wanted to smooth his beard and mustache to reveal the sculpted lips she could barely see.
Her carefully controlled hands didn’t betray her desire with any movement whatsoever.
He was Soren, but he wasn’t her Soren. The reminder hurt, but not as much as forgetting would hurt. He wouldn’t want her touch. He wouldn’t lean into her glove-covered fingers. She should be glad of that. How could she trust herself to touch him, knowing the potential for power that pulsed beneath her skin? Because that potential for power also came with the potential for its abuse. She’d seen what her mother had done. She’d barely lived through it.
“You come here dressed like a Volkhvy princess. I well remember your mother’s preference for red silk before she turned to the mourning color of purple,” Soren said.
“Should I keep wearing mismatched rags like I wore before? I am a Volkhvy princess. I am a witch. I am Vasilisa’s daughter. There’s no point in denying the truth. Just as there’s no point in refusing my offer to help you retrieve the sword,” Anna replied. It hurt to say it out loud. That she was no longer human. That she’d never been human. How long would it take for her to get used to being a witch? His rejection hurt all the more because she couldn’t walk away from herself. She was stuck with what she’d become, come what may. Her mother had danced with the Darkness when she’d thought she’d lost her child. Who was to say that Anna would do better if she was ever challenged in the same way?
“The emerald sword was forged by an evil queen for her champions. I’m no longer her champion, therefore, I don’t give a damn about the sword,” Soren said. “Let them have it.”
He edged closer as he spoke, and Anna’s pulse sped up, giving lie to the idea that her heart was ruined and unable to pound. Her back came up against the tree trunk again, even though she hadn’t meant to move.
She watched his eyes widen slightly. Either he was surprised by her sudden retreat or he was taking in the change of perspective. When he was in his wolf form, he was much larger than a natural wolf. The red wolf had come to her chest in height so she leaned over him to speak and he pointed his nose to the sky in order to meet her eyes.
As a man, he dwarfed her in height and breadth.
The difference was stunning.
He loomed large and intimidating, but also...something more. Her reaction wasn’t entirely one of shock. There was a more pleasurable thrill pulsing beneath her skin, as well.
Attraction.
Her retreat had been spurred in part because she wanted to step forward to meet his advance and she knew she shouldn’t. He wouldn’t welcome her. And she had to maintain control of the powers she didn’t trust. The nearer she came to him, the less control she had...in all things.
He was so close now. Only inches away. When she inhaled, a woodsy scent rose from his skin warmed by his body heat into something more human and masculine than spruce, fresh air and autumn leaves. She’d been angry at the red wolf’s rejection. In part because she had no way to reject herself. Her reaction to his human form was much more complicated.
She reached to hold the tree at her back, one hand on either side of her hips.
Her mother had begun the process of teaching her how to channel and control the power that Volkhvy drew from the atmosphere of the invisible Ether that surrounded them all. She was a novice. Her mother had already been a queen when she’d lost control and fomented a curse that plagued the Romanovs and, inadvertently, her own daughter for centuries.
The tightness in Anna’s chest was magnified as Soren paused and his amber gaze tracked over her features. He had tilted his head closely over hers and his hair fell on either side of her face, a russet curtain against the darker surroundings. She held her breath rather than trying to force air into her stubborn lungs.
And, heaven help her, she closed her eyes.
Even curse tempered, her bravery had its limits.
“You are a stranger to me,” Soren said softly. “One I do not wish to know.”
Perhaps she could blame the sword’s Call to the power in her blood for her attraction to this man who obviously despised her. Or perhaps not. The years that had passed didn’t prevent her from remembering the way she’d felt about him when she’d been a girl. He’d been boyishly handsome then and princely to her Cinderella.
Now he was hardened and scarred and angry.
And, still, she yearned.
Her eyelids opened. She couldn’t hide from this meeting by closing her eyes. His gaze locked onto hers and she was caught by the swirl of emotions behind the golden brown.
If there was only anger and distrust left between them, why did she want to touch his frowning face?
“If you care about your family, then you have to care about the sword. The Dark Volkhvy will use it against Bronwal if they have it long enough for one of them to discover how to connect with its power. Ivan and Elena and all the Romanov people will be endangered by a Dark witch connected to the emerald sword,” Anna said. Her lips moved to persuade him of desperate practicalities, but she held the rest of herself still beneath his harsh stare. It was far worse than she’d expected to stand nearly toe-to-toe with him. He despised Volkhvy. She didn’t trust her own blood or the connection the sword tried to forge between them. And yet, her desire to reach out to him wasn’t quelled.
“Why do you care? About any of us?” Soren asked. “Bell is gone. She died with the breaking of the curse and you’ve been reborn as someone we hate.” The growl was still in his voice, but it was accompanied by a new emotion he’d hidden until now. She recognized grief. He mourned for who she had been as if she’d died. As if Bell and Anna weren’t the same person.
The idea that she was dead to him was worse than rejection. She felt more abandoned to her Volkhvy blood and adrift in its power than before. For the first time since he’d stepped out of the woods, an ember of anger rekindled beneath her breast.
“My blood doesn’t negate who I was before,” Anna said. Although she wondered. She’d wondered from the moment her parentage had been revealed. “Of course I care...about Bronwal and all the people in it.” Not about him in particular. Not anymore. It wasn’t wise and it wasn’t safe. It wasn’t controlled, and she wouldn’t allow it.
“Witches only care for themselves. Your mother manipulated our genes with magic before we were born. She made us monsters and then she cursed us when our father proved too monstrous for her to handle. You can’t expect me to trust her daughter,” Soren said.
He whirled away as if he couldn’t stand the sight of her. He paced several steps in the direction from which they’d come, but then he stopped in the middle of the path. His hair fell down his back in tangled waves. It created a halo around his head where the sunbeams fell. His clothes were still the mismatched, poorly mended type of garments that denizens of Bronwal had pieced together during the curse. He wore scuffed leather breeches and a long woolen cloak. His boots had seen better days.
There was something about his manly size and shape paired with the poor quality of his clothing that made her tight chest ache. His castle was on the mend, but he, himself, was still in the midst of the curse. It had been broken. But it didn’t matter. Lev was still a feral wolf. She was the daughter of his worst enemy. Soren’s nightmare wasn’t over.
“You don’t have to trust me. I’m not here to gain your trust,” Anna said. She couldn’t protect her secret and help him at the same time. Self-preservation and pride gave way, because her pain mattered less than keeping the people of Bronwal safe. “I’m here because the emerald sword Calls to me, Soren. Vasilisa sent me to help you find it.”
Soren’s entire body stiffened. It was as if his spine turned to steel as she watched him harden from his head to his shoes. She waited as he slowly turned back around. It seemed to take an eternity. Her breath caught in her throat as she both dreaded and anticipated seeing his face again.
No. No. No. No. No.
“No,” he said. His eyes met hers, and his amber irises no longer needed the sunbeam. They blazed with his emotion alone. “No.”
His words still sliced through her, even though they only echoed her own rejection of the sword’s Call.
“There’s nothing I can do to change it. I tried to ignore its Call. The enchantment is too strong. It can’t be ignored. My destiny and yours were forged into its blade and burned into the heart of the emerald in its hilt,” Anna said. “The two of us have to work together to prevent the Dark Volkhvy from using the emerald sword’s power to hurt the people of Bronwal. Only we can stop them. We have to prevent the emergence of a new Dark prince.”
“Or princess,” Soren added.
Her cheeks were heated. She could feel the flush flaming there against the cool morning mist. She hadn’t wanted to tell him, but she saw no other way to convince him that he needed her. He couldn’t ignore the enchantment without exposing his family and his people to further harm.
“I won’t be manipulated by Vasilisa’s enchantments,” Soren continued. “Never again. There is no chance I will accept that you are...that Vasilisa’s daughter...is destined to be my mate. And there’s no way I’ll work with you to retrieve the sword.”
Anna thought she’d experienced shock before, but she’d been wrong. He would turn his back on his responsibilities in order to turn his back on her. He hated her that much. Soren’s face had become pale marble behind his russet beard. His pupils were so large that his eyes looked black. The tightness in her chest suddenly released. She was hollowed out and empty. The hollowness seemed to be reflected in those bottomless pits as they stared at her.
The idea of her as his wife was repugnant to him.
Of course it was.
That should come as no surprise.
But he refused to hear her reasonable arguments because of her blood as well, and his stubborn refusal shocked her to her core.
She couldn’t reject her blood. She couldn’t reject the mother she’d found after centuries of having none. She might never trust her blood or her mother, but she couldn’t change them. She could only endure his opinion of her the same way she’d endured the curse. One foot in front of the other, for years and years and years.
She was a Volkhvy.
Soren Romanov despised Volkhvy.
And yet, the sword had chosen her, so it was only a Light Volkhvy princess who could lead him to the sword.
“I don’t want the sword or the connection between us. I only want to stop the Dark Volkhvy from using its power to do more harm. I’m not here to claim the sword. Or you,” Anna said.
The Call of the emerald sword echoed in the shell of her body as all she’d once felt for Soren Romanov evaporated like mountain mist in the rising sun.
Chapter 2 (#u740aa1bc-7ca5-5be8-8708-468e96d63461)
I’m not here to claim the sword. Or you.
Her words echoed in his ears long after the silence of the forest had descended around their standoff once more. His feet were planted on firm ground. His muscles responded when he tightened his fists. His chest rose and fell. His heart beat. But none of those things negated the feeling that he stood on a jagged, dangerous precipice waiting for the suck of gravity to take him down, down, down to the floor of the canyon somewhere far below.
Bell was gone. But she was also mere feet away from where he stood waiting to fall to his death. The fall never came, of course. That would have been an escape, and there was no escape from this. The feeling of being on the edge of a cliff was only the emptiness her presence caused deep in his gut.
Because she wasn’t really here.
This wasn’t the girl he’d known. She wasn’t even the woman the girl had become as they’d endured the curse together, side by side. He’d been Bell’s protector. Her constant companion for more years than he could count. He’d been in his wolf form, but he remembered every second, every one-sided conversation, every wistful sigh and every battle. Those intimate memories scalded his already raw emotions.
The beautiful witch who faced him with wide green eyes and damp curly hair was a stranger, an enemy who was interfering with the hunt for his brother right when he was as close as he’d ever been to luring Lev home.
Soren had no time for Anna. He had to make the distinction between the girl he had known and the witch she had become clear in his heart. He had to save his brother before it was too late. Talk of swords and witches only prolonged the inevitable moment when he would have to see her leave again. Even if she only left once he had driven her away.
* * *
The howl that sounded around them was so different from the natural wolf’s howl she’d heard before that Anna jumped away from the tree. She’d have time later to mourn what she might have had with Soren Romanov if she’d actually been the foundling he loved.
For now, she swallowed her fear and chose to survive.
She had her left glove off before her feet hit the ground, and as she landed with her boots planted wide apart, the other glove fell beside its partner. Beneath her scarlet cloak—her princess garb—she wore deep green insulated leggings and a matching microfiber jacket that would have seemed at home on a cross-country skier’s body.
She’d grown used to eclectic dress as the orphaned waif of Bronwal. She saw no reason to change now. She was still Bell, even as she found her way as Anna, whether Soren understood that or not.
The veins in her hands glowed a pale green beneath her porcelain skin in the forest shadows as her cloak fell back from her shoulders to hang in a long flow of scarlet down her back.
“Don’t scare him. It’s taken me months to get him this close to the castle,” Soren ordered gruffly.
“Don’t scare him? Okay. Right. Makes perfect sense,” Anna replied. But the veins in her hands dimmed in response to Soren’s concern. She saw herself through his eyes, witchy and strange.
Another ferocious howl followed the first without pause. It was accompanied by a chorus of weaker howls that sounded from all directions around them. They stood in the center of the path. Her leap had instinctively taken her to a defensive position beside Soren. The weaker howls indicated a pack of natural wolves were following the white wolf’s lead.
“Scaring them away might be our best chance to survive,” Anna warned.
“Not an option,” Soren growled. He moved to place his back up against hers as he spoke. His rough voice vibrated against her. She ignored the pleasant thrill the vibration caused deep in her stomach. Her physical reaction to him was a distraction and his sharp words and even sharper rejection of who and what she’d become flustered her in harsher ways. She focused on the approaching howls instead.
The wolves were hunting.
And they wouldn’t be hunting one of their own.
They were coming for her, not Soren.
“They’ll tear me apart if I don’t defend myself,” Anna said. “And maybe even if I do.”
“That’s not going to happen,” Soren said.
This time she wasn’t able to ignore the thrill in response to his proclamation. These words were more like the Soren she’d known for so long. He might hate her now. He might want her to go away. But this was Soren Romanov, and he wasn’t going to throw her to the wolves—even if one of the wolves was his brother.
“I’ll take that as a promise,” Anna replied.
They were surrounded by the haze of morning mist that slowly rode the unseen drafts in the air around them. The mist’s movement made it nearly impossible to note whether or not the shadows in the undergrowth moved, as well. Anna strained her eyes to try to penetrate the mist and the shadows. A hulking canine shape detached itself from the trunk of a tree only to melt into nothingness again when she thought she’d finally focused on the shape of a wolf. It happened again and again until she finally knew there were dozens of wolves among the trees. They were in constant motion, but none of them stepped forward onto the path.
“Damn it, Lev. You don’t belong in the forest. Let this pack go and come home to Bronwal,” Soren said.
Even in his human form, Soren’s eyes were better than her own. He saw and spoke to his brother before the massive shape of the white wolf materialized out of the mist. Anna couldn’t help it—she gasped when Lev came out of the trees. He was as familiar to her as Soren, but he’d always kept his distance. For centuries he’d been a savage but ghostly presence on the periphery of her existence. She’d always known to be leery of him. She’d avoided him just as she’d avoided the other denizens of Bronwal who were Ether addled.
But his appearance now startled her so badly that her hands flared without her giving them permission. Volkhvy power was incredibly hard to harness and control. It came from the Ether itself, and many a Dark witch had been consumed while trying to tap into a greater share of the energy than they should. Light Volkhvy were careful, thoughtful and almost reverent with their abilities...most of the time.
Anna swallowed against her fear—both of Lev and of herself. She tamped down her desperate desire to bring more energy to life in her hands. She could contain and control. She had to.
“That’s new,” Soren said.
For a second she thought he was talking about Lev’s crazy fur, matted with mud and dried blood, or the ferocious snarl aimed in their direction.
“You’re glowing,” he continued.
Of course he would be talking about her powers and the obvious flares and flickerings that said she wasn’t exactly an expert at harnessing their strength.
“That’s what Volkhvy do,” Anna said. “Especially when we’re threatened.”
She didn’t tell him the emerald sword’s Call might be enhancing abilities she hadn’t learned to completely control.
The white wolf growled, and the pack of natural wolves he led was emboldened to come forward and ring the two people in the center of the path.
“He won’t hurt you,” Soren said.
He sounded so certain. Even though they were no longer friends, his confidence in his brother caused her chest to tighten again. Soren wouldn’t give up on the white wolf. Ever. He never had in all the years they’d lived with the curse. He’d even followed Lev into wolf form in order to better keep watch over his feral brother. But Soren was wrong. It was obvious that Lev would hurt her. It was obvious from the bloodstains on his muzzle and the dried blood caked in his fur that he’d been in on many kills since he’d run away from the castle. There was no way of knowing how far he’d ranged or if he’d been feeding on man or beast.
“You’re wrong. He wants to kill me,” Anna said.
This time she didn’t dim the power in her hands. She was only beginning to control her abilities and she needed to be careful, but she had no intention of being stupid. Or naive. The anger Soren had toward her was nothing compared to the fury that came off his savage brother. It hit her in waves of heat that weren’t soothed by the cool misty air.
“She’s going to leave, Lev. I promise. And she won’t be coming back,” Soren said.
Anna was too busy watching the white wolf approach to feel greater loss at Soren’s proclamation. If he wouldn’t act to stop the wolves, then she had to defend herself. She held herself back until Lev was only a leap away. She waited as long as she could, but Soren didn’t shift. He carried no weapon that she could see. He continued to speak to his brother in calming tones that seemed to have no effect.
When she decided to tap into the Ether to send the natural wolves away in the hope that Lev would be more reachable without them at his back, the air crackled with electricity. The morning mist instantly disappeared as all the moisture droplets suspended in the air were sucked into the nothingness that had swallowed Bronwal and all the people in it on a perpetual cycle during the curse.
Light Volkhvy were usually careful and reasonable...until they weren’t. Her mother, Vasilisa, had almost gone completely Dark when she thought Vladimir Romanov had murdered her daughter. The curse had been the darkest use of Volkhvy magic anyone had seen in an age, and it had been worked by the Light Volkhvy queen.
For love and loss.
Vasilisa had mourned for centuries even as she’d perpetuated the curse.
Anna guarded against the hollow ache in her chest and the supreme pain of losing her red wolf when she channeled the power she needed with her hands. The better to keep from unleashing too much, too soon, too harshly. She was learning. The flare she radiated outward toward the pack all around them was too powerful. The impact of green energy when it hit the trees shook the whole dark wood and rebounded back to her hands, sending her to her knees.
Her ears rang with the implosion of power as she desperately sent it back into the Ether.
Chapter 3 (#u740aa1bc-7ca5-5be8-8708-468e96d63461)
When the ringing faded away, she was left in utter silence.
The wolves were gone.
All the wolves were gone.
Anna opened her clenched eyelids. She’d landed hard. The pain had brought tears to her eyes. She blinked the stinging moisture from her lashes as she looked around the empty clearing.
The white wolf was nowhere to be seen.
“What have you done?” Soren asked accusingly. He was still on his feet only because he was incredibly strong. His muscular legs were planted and dug into the packed earth of the pathway where the impact of her energy had sent him backward several feet. “Lev!” he shouted. “Lev!”
There was no reply.
“I didn’t mean to send him away, too. I was aiming for the pack,” Anna said. She looked around and reached for her gloves. She shakily pulled them onto her hands as she rose to her feet on wobbly knees. “I still have a lot to learn.”
“You went with her. You willingly became her pupil. After all she’s done,” Soren ground out between gritted teeth. “And now you’re using the Ether. You’re using power you can’t control.”
Once again, he looked at her as if she was a stranger. His face was tight. His eyes glared. His fists were held at his sides and pressed into his hips as if he needed to contain them.
“I can’t change my parentage any more than you can, Soren. She was wrong to curse us. She’s sorry.” At his harsh bark of laughter, she fisted her hands, too. “I know that’s not enough. She can’t take it back. What’s done is done. But I can’t deny my blood just because we’re scarred by the memories of what we endured. I always wondered... Who were my parents? Who was I?” Anna said. “You can’t ask me to turn away from the answer.”
“You were Bell. You were our friend,” Soren said. “You were my...”
“It was a lie. Your father kidnapped me from the human foster parents my mother had used to hide me. He said I was an orphan. I was your father’s captive until he was gone and then I was a wanderer, a survivor. We were never truly friends if you can turn your back on me now,” Anna said.
Her chest expanded fully for the first time since Soren had appeared on the path. Hot anger rushed in to fill the hollow of where her heart used to be. It supplanted the sword’s Call. She gladly accepted its warmth in place of the feelings she’d had before. Anger had sustained her for weeks on her mother’s island, Krajina, after the curse was broken. It was a relief to feel it again.
“I never belonged in Bronwal. Even after I knew its cavernous rooms and twisted hallways like the back of my hand. It was our jail, but it was never my home,” Anna continued. “I’m still trying to find my way back to a place I can call my own. Part of that journey is learning about my Volkhvy abilities.” She didn’t tell him that she had her own doubts. That she was afraid. Once upon a time, the red wolf had been her confidant. That time was past.
And part of her journey would be learning to let her red wolf go. No. Not hers. Never hers. The red wolf. She had to let her silly childish dreams concerning Soren Romanov go.
“You scared Lev away right when I’d almost reached him,” Soren said.
He was lying to himself. The white wolf had been wilder than the wildest beast. He hadn’t been a creature who looked anywhere near ready to be civilized again. But she didn’t argue. Soren wouldn’t hear reason. Not from her.
Anna straightened her back and firmed her smarting knees. She took another deep breath and faced the man in front of her. She composed her face one taut nerve at a time. She wouldn’t apologize for protecting herself, although she hadn’t meant to send Lev away. She needed to accept that she was no longer someone that Soren would care for and protect. His priorities had changed. Hers needed to change, too. She would learn to control her powers and she would use her anger to survive her time with Soren Romanov until the sword was found.
Soren blinked in the face of her sudden icy calm. He raised his hands and opened his fists to push his fingers up into his hair. He held the tangled mass back from his face on either side as if to better see the witch she’d become.
Her forced calm was shaken when he seemed to harden again right before her eyes. He lowered his hands. He lifted his chin. Even beneath the beard, she could see the sharp angles of his chiseled face as his jaw tightened. He stepped toward her and she had to brace herself to keep from retreating.
She held her ground until he was only a foot away. Only then did he speak again, and this time his voice was pitched seriously low. For her ears alone. As if he didn’t even want the forest to be privy to their complicated relationship.
“You came back because you heard the emerald sword’s Call?” he asked.
She inclined her head in response, because her mouth had gone too dry for her to speak. She was braced, but she was also nervous. Her anger threatened to drain away, and in its place was an ache that said her heart was still there and the worst was yet to come.
“Good. You can lead me to where it’s being held,” Soren said. “So I can destroy it. Then you’ll be free to go back to your queen and I’ll be free to save my brother.”
She thought she’d experienced the ultimate rejection, but now she knew better. She hid her emotions. She forced her jaw to relax and her eyes to meet his. His were trained on her face as if he wanted to memorize her reaction. Her skin was cold. Every drop of blood had drained from her cheeks, but she forced herself to lick her stiff lips and speak.
“Anything to silence the Call that won’t leave me in peace,” she said.
He blinked and looked away, as if her words had shocked him. Only her anger kept her from reaching up to bring his gaze back to hers. He wouldn’t want her gloved fingers on his face. He wouldn’t want her touch.
It was better this way.
The sooner the sword was destroyed, the sooner she could control her powers and forget the red wolf, who had savaged her without baring a single tooth or claw.
* * *
Lev had disappeared without a trace. It was too much like the old nightmare that had plagued him during the curse. Soren had always materialized to face the fear that he might have lost his brother for good. He’d never known—would this Cycle be his brother’s last? Or this one?
Bell had been his constant. His anchor. Even when he’d chosen to retreat into his wolf form to make it more possible to watch over Lev, he’d depended on Bell to always be there—human, rational, determined to survive.
And then he’d lost her.
He’d died a little that day after the curse was broken, but he’d buried himself in his vow to save his brother. He’d pushed himself mercilessly on two wobbly human legs that he had to relearn how to use again, but the push had kept him from mourning for Bell. He’d grown stronger and stronger as he’d lived in the woods tracking the white wolf. He hadn’t allowed himself to shift, because it would have been too easy to lose himself and follow his brother into the wilderness, never to return.
He couldn’t allow himself that luxury.
Instead, he’d become a wild man, driven by loss and determination, living at the edge of civilization even as he tried to urge his brother back into the fold.
He felt the wild now, closer than it had ever been. It howled in his heart. He kept it at bay the only way he knew how—by subsuming his heart and his desires in his devotion to saving his brother.
He searched the entire forest for Lev before he admitted defeat. The whole wood was devoid of life. With her witchery, Anna had frightened every creature away. Only the leaves stirred in the trees as he passed by.
Anna wasn’t Bell. The glowing veins in her hands and forearms proved it. Her face and form were all too familiar, and his human form reacted to her in startling and unacceptable ways. As a man, he was plagued with a better perspective of her eyes, and from them he thought he saw neither a witch nor the woman he’d known gazing back at him. She looked frightened. He’d seen her scared many times when they’d been trapped in the curse and fighting for their sanity and their lives. This was different. Back then she’d always been bold. She’d always seemed confident that she could handle whatever came around the next bend in the maze of the castle’s hallways.
How often had she taken a stand at his side against Ether-addled madmen or intruding Volkhvy? So often that he could close his eyes in the shadowy forest and remember her standing as a young girl and again and again on up until she was a young woman still standing, still fighting for him, for survival and for Bronwal.
She didn’t look confident anymore.
He opened his eyes beneath the trees, and yet he could see her as she’d been moments before. She looked afraid. Her uncertainty shook him to his core. As the red wolf, he would have leaped up to defend her from whatever threatened. But that was then and this was now. He was no longer her protector. His responsibility was to his beleaguered brother. He couldn’t protect Anna anymore. She was lost to the blood in her veins.
She was a witch.
He continued deeper into the woods, and the hunt for Lev helped distance him from Anna until he could trust himself to keep that thought in mind. She had driven his brother away. It had been such a relief to see the white wolf again. To know that he hadn’t vanished into the Ether. But his relief had been short-lived. Anna’s sudden use of her power had made sure of that. Now Lev was gone again and Soren could only go after him.
He no longer had Bell to protect. What he did have was an obligation to save his brother and a frightened and unpredictable witch claiming the Call of the emerald sword Vasilisa had forged for his mate.
Soren had never been a natural wolf. He’d also never gone feral like Lev. Even in the form of the red Romanov wolf, he’d had a human’s understanding. He’d watched over Bell as she grew—older, wiser and stronger. He’d cared for her deeply, as a wolf, but in his current form he was buffeted by sensations and emotions he wasn’t prepared to handle.
His body still hummed a secret song from her nearness. His heart still raced and his mouth went dry because his breath came too quickly between lips half-parted to utter words he could never allow himself to say.
He should only feel betrayed. His only concern should be finding his brother and saving him from the wild that Vasilisa had crafted into their hearts with her magical tampering.
But every step that took him farther away from the woman he’d left in the clearing seemed a lie.
How could you mourn someone who had never existed? How could you long to touch a witch you should despise?
She’d frightened Lev away, but when she’d said the emerald sword had Called her, Soren’s first feeling had been one of triumph, as if every cell in his body wanted to claim the connection.
No.
Bell was dead to him, and Anna was a dangerous stranger. Her acceptance of her heritage had changed her from friend to foe. The flare from her hands had been brighter than any use of Volkhvy magic he’d ever seen. For all he knew, she might have sent Lev into the Ether. As the daughter of Vasilisa, she couldn’t be trusted. She threatened his family. She had proved it by getting in his way as he’d tried to help his brother. He was no longer the Light Volkhvy champion, but he’d been standing against evil for too long to stop now. After all he’d endured, how could he see any Volkhvy as anything but evil? Even one that he’d once...
He tamped down whatever attraction he had for the green-eyed witch. He hardened his heart and his soul against any of the former softness he’d felt for the woman who must now be his enemy. She’d looked for that softness in his eyes when they’d stood face-to-face. He’d done his best to kill it right in front of her searching gaze.
He would forget the weakness that had threatened to claim him when her eyes had widened and moistened with pain and fear. He would forget the familiar righteous anger that had flamed to life in his chest when she’d been threatened.
The only way he’d survive the loss of Bell would be to send Anna back to her mother as soon as possible. Bell was gone and Anna would soon be out of his life, as well. He wouldn’t allow her to accept the sword’s Call. There had been a girl the Call had been meant for, but she was gone. He might be a man, but he was also a monster created by a Volkhvy queen, and the only woman who had ever made him long to walk on two legs again was gone.
By the time Soren returned to Anna’s side, every bit of softness in his heart was gone, as well.
Chapter 4 (#u740aa1bc-7ca5-5be8-8708-468e96d63461)
It was evening before Soren came back to the castle. She’d wondered if he would come back at all. If she’d had the ability to shift into a wolf, she might have chosen that option rather than face him again.
As the daughter of Vasilisa, she had to dress for dinner when she was summoned by the master and mistress of Bronwal. Ivan and Elena were trying to treat her as a guest rather than an enemy. The least she could do was meet their efforts halfway...even if it meant exposing herself to more of Soren’s scathing reception.
She’d packed light, but she’d also been conscious of the fact that she would be visiting a castle and its recently reinstated king with his newly wedded queen. Ivan Romanov had been every inch a royal even before the curse had been lifted. He’d ruled Bronwal far longer than his father, continuing as its master after all hope of surviving the curse was lost.
Bell had been one of his subjects.
He’d tried to help her survive, never knowing that she was the daughter of the witch who had cursed them all because of Vladimir Romanov’s betrayal.
The least she could do was pull the carefully rolled evening dress from her backpack and shake out its white silken folds. She’d chosen the color carefully as a gesture of truce. She was fairly certain her mother had it put in her closet for a night like tonight. Anna would be Vasilisa’s envoy in a place where the Light Volkhvy queen herself would probably never be welcome.
No pressure.
The dress slid liquidly over her skin and settled into place as a simple shift, although the shimmer of the exquisite material gave lie to simplicity when she moved to slip on her shoes. The satin slippers would have been ruined in minutes in the old Bronwal, but now the floors were clean and covered in finely woven carpeting.
It was strange to dress in a bedchamber that was clean and modernized in a castle that had been more haunted than functional for centuries. In addition to the cleanliness and the carpeting, running water and sweet-scented toiletries startled her. She felt far removed from the desperate waif she’d been as she tamed and styled her curls on top of her head. Tendrils of gleaming chestnut were the only ornaments around her face.
But she couldn’t resist bright ruby lips and lush mascara. To those dashes of color she also added contours of blush on her cheeks. She had been as pale as death since she’d encountered Soren in the woods. The cosmetics might help to disguise her continued reaction to his transformation as well as her own. Her preparations didn’t soothe her. She felt alien when a servant she’d never known came to escort her to a sitting room, where her hosts waited.
Elena Romanov wore a stunning dress crafted of pale peach layers in crepe and chiffon. As always, no matter what she wore, she looked as if she might still pirouette rather than step from room to room. Every movement from her smile to the turning of her head was graceful and artistic.
But the former dancer was no delicate swan.
She had been as hard as she had to be to accept the sapphire blade’s Call. Tonight, she wore glittering sapphires in her ears and around her neck in honor of the blade she’d left elsewhere. Thankfully, she also wore a genuinely warm smile for Anna. They had become friends before her parentage was revealed, and it seemed that Elena had chosen to continue that friendship.
Of course, she was new to Bronwal. Vasilisa had only been her enemy for a short time, and the curse had actually brought her and Ivan together.
“Soren is back,” Elena said. She approached on light steps and Anna allowed her to grasp both of her gloved hands without flinching. It was only dinner. There was no reason to fear that her power might flare. Elena didn’t mention her elbow-length gloves, even though they didn’t exactly match her evening apparel. She only squeezed her fingers and met her nervous gaze. “He hasn’t been back for months. I hoped you might have some positive influence.”
“According to Soren, she frightened Lev away. He searched the entire wood and the white wolf was nowhere to be seen,” Ivan Romanov interjected as he entered the room.
Anna pulled her hands from Elena’s and turned to face the alpha wolf in his human form. Unlike Lev, he had resisted shifting for centuries until the savagery of the black wolf gleamed from his dark eyes and his wild, wavy hair. Although the curse had been broken, he still looked barely civilized. Maybe because he was free to shift at will now with his warrior mate by his side.
He wasn’t smiling.
As he approached, his expression was guarded and his brows were heavy. He’d always looked as if the entire weight of Bronwal rested on his broad shoulders. That hadn’t altered, unless you could call the addition of more weight and more responsibilities a change. He now had a wife and a rematerialized people to stand for.
Not to mention a former charge turned witch.
“It was an accident. I didn’t want to be eaten. Lots of things have changed, but that remains the same,” Anna said.
“I understand,” Elena said. The feral white wolf had also threatened her when she’d first come to Bronwal. Maybe her understanding would remind Ivan of that fact.
“Soren says they’re leaving in the morning,” Ivan continued, as if Elena hadn’t spoken. But he did pause by her side and place a large hand gently on her petite shoulder. Anna was hypnotized by the giant man’s soft touch against his wife’s arm. His face was lit by concern for his brothers and a wariness for Vasilisa’s daughter, but it was softened by his love for Elena.
Anna suddenly realized that she might not have been welcomed at Bronwal if not for the tiny dancer turned fierce warrior. The sapphire blade was nowhere to be seen, but Elena had its glow in her eyes when she faced her powerful husband. She was his equal as well as his lover. And her friendship with Anna would be respected as much as the king could allow.
No matter his personal trust issues about the waif turned witch in their midst.
He had been the only liege Anna had known for centuries. She hadn’t been close to Ivan Romanov. No one had. He’d been a lone wolf even when he’d chosen to only walk on two legs. But even cursed, he had been the legendary champion of the Light Volkhvy and master of Bronwal in all of its dark, labyrinthine glory.
He saw her as the enemy now. That hurt. It also shook how she saw herself.
“He won’t give up on Lev, but there’s something we have to do,” Anna said. She hoped no one, least of all Soren, would mention the emerald blade to Ivan Romanov. His distrust might erupt into fury, and the tingling her hands told her that her reaction, even in self-defense, might be irredeemable.
Ivan was dressed in a black suit that matched his queued hair. His eyes glittered in the soft light of candles. The castle was being modernized, but even with Vasilisa’s magical help, updates took time. There were numerous silver candelabra that had been brought in to supply light to Elena’s sitting room. The doorway glowed in a soft, wavering spotlight created by fire. In the spotlight, Soren appeared out of the shadowed corridor.
He was not in a suit.
The tangle of his red hair was still in a wild mane around his face and shoulders.
His full russet beard still covered half his angular face. Above it, his amber eyes reflected a thousand flickering flames.
He didn’t need a suit to be striking. He was breathtaking in a homespun tunic, open at the neck, and leather leggings. Mainly because the clothing rode his muscular legs, arms and chest without covering up his masculine power.
If you haven’t noticed, I’m a man, not a wolf.
A woman would have to be dead not to notice, and Anna’s breathless reaction proved that, in spite of everything, she was very much alive.
He stalked into the room, and Elena gasped. Maybe because she still wasn’t used to seeing him in his human form. Maybe because he looked as if he should be out hunting for dinner rather than preparing to sit down and eat at a table with them.
Anna glanced at her friend and saw the queen’s eyes widen and her cheeks flush. She saw Elena reach for her husband’s arm and squeeze as if she was making an unspoken request.
“The witch is our dinner guest, brother,” Ivan said. His voice was calm, and Anna’s heartbeat sped up because she recognized it as similar to the voice Soren had used to try to reach Lev in the forest. Was Soren so wild that the king felt it his responsibility to soothe him?
The tingling in her fingers increased to an almost-painful gathering of electricity. Her breath caught. Every hair on her body stood to attention. Only Soren noticed. Elena and Ivan were completely focused on him. But he was looking at Anna. He stopped several feet away. His eyes met hers. She felt her eyes widen, and she fisted her hands. His gaze left hers to sweep from her head to her feet and then back again.
He stayed frozen except for the working of his throat as he swallowed.
“Shall we eat?” Elena said into the sudden stillness.
The electricity in Anna’s fingers faded as Soren held himself back. She wasn’t under attack. He wasn’t going to pounce. Not to harm her...or for any other possibility that suggested itself in the echoes of tingles that flowed along her veins for reasons other than magic.
And suddenly, as their gazes met again, his amber to her green, she realized he wasn’t going to throw her to the alpha wolf, either. He didn’t mention the emerald sword or its Call.
Her secret was safe for now.
* * *
He had charged into Elena’s parlor with concern for Lev fueling his every stride. He’d seen no sign of the white wolf, although he’d searched all day. Then he’d come back to Bronwal for the first time in months, only to be confronted by its obvious signs of healing. People bustled. People laughed. There was hot running water in a dressing room that had been converted to a bath off his bedchamber.
He eschewed it all.
Every guffaw. Every clean, sparkling corner. Every damned piece of perfect clothing tailored with modern cloth.
Lev was lost while Bronwal and everyone in it recovered.
And Bell was lost, as well. Long gone somewhere he could never follow.
Ivan had come to his room while he threw off the torn and soiled rags he’d worn for weeks in the forest. While he’d bathed and changed into his usual homespun shirt and leather pants, he’d told his brother about Anna’s use of magic and Lev’s disappearance.
He hadn’t mentioned the sword.
He hadn’t known why until he saw the petite witch standing beside the alpha wolf with panicked eyes and fisted hands.
And then he’d looked at Anna, daughter of Vasilisa, the Light Volkhvy queen—really looked from her beautiful chestnut curls to her figure-hugging silk gown—and his ability to reason had flown out the nearest window.
He didn’t know why she was frightened.
Maybe anyone in their right mind would fear the alpha wolf, the Romanov king, the once and present champion of the Light Volkhvy. Ivan was the largest wolf. The black alpha. The last one left standing on two legs when he and Lev had failed. Did it really matter that Soren’s failure had been on purpose to take care of his brother, the white wolf? That by sacrificing his human form, he’d given up the only years of living by Bell’s side as a man he might have had?
Ivan Romanov would be even angrier over the emerald sword than he was himself. Ivan’s truce with Vasilisa was uneasy at best. Nearly hostile at its worst. He needed her help as Bronwal recovered from the damage she had caused with her curse, but Ivan didn’t fully trust the queen. He probably never would.
Or was Anna afraid of the power she might unleash if Ivan Romanov shifted to protect them all from her claim on one of the Romanov blades?
Soren chose not to find out.
He swallowed his wolf. He controlled his concern for Lev. It helped that Anna’s appearance left him with barely enough energy to walk into the next room, where a small, intimate dinner had been set up on a long table he could remember as being covered in dust and debris.
It had been washed and sanded and polished. Candles filled the room on every surface. Elena must have commandeered every candelabrum in the castle and some from the towns in the valley below.
“Elena informs me eating at a fine table is like riding a bike. Although, as you know, I’ve never ridden a bicycle in all my long life,” Ivan said. He walked to the head of the table and pulled out the queen’s chair as if he hadn’t lived as a recluse in a cursed castle for more years than she’d been alive. Elena smiled at him, and Soren forgot how to breathe for long seconds as the love his brother had found punched him in the gut with the knowledge of the love he’d lost.
“Don’t worry. This is a family meal. No more. No less. No prying eyes as we learn how to do this again,” Ivan continued. He sat in a chair beside his wife at the head of the table. But the two other place settings were beside them in an intimate configuration that would be brutal for him as long as it lasted.
“Soren doesn’t consider me family. Not anymore. I’m an unwelcome guest at best. I’ll excuse myself. Perhaps I should have asked for some bread and cheese in my room,” Anna said. How often had he watched her nibble on a crust of stale bread? How often had he helped her forage for food or whatever else they needed?
Not her.
Bell.
He wouldn’t feel sympathetic for a witch who didn’t feel welcome.
“Sit. Eat. We are free to enjoy an actual meal at a table and we will enjoy it, by God,” Ivan said. But Soren’s spine stiffened, because he heard the alpha wolf’s command in the order. His brother, the king, wouldn’t be denied.
Nor should he.
If Soren’s main responsibility was restoring the white wolf to life and limb, Ivan’s main responsibility was restoring Bronwal and all the people in it to normalcy, or the closest thing to normalcy that people out of time and no longer cursed could have. He hadn’t worn the suit Elena had provided for him. But he would eat with his brother and his wife, even if they insisted that a witch princess sit at the same table, too.
* * *
Had she hoped a dress and some lipstick would soothe the savage beast?
Anna was angrier with herself than with the stubborn man who sat across the table from her. He tore into his chicken and potatoes with gusto, and she nearly did the same, pausing only to wash down large mouthfuls with sweet red wine. The sooner they finished, the sooner she could escape back to her room.
If one meal together felt like the end of the world, how would she survive the coming days...and nights...when they would be forced to travel together to retrieve the emerald sword?
Thank goodness for her ability to travel through the Ether.
The sooner they retrieved the sword and destroyed it, the better.
Elena was the only one at the table who picked at her food. She was as slight as a former ballerina would be. Not to mention she’d been sitting at tables to eat her entire life. Anna, like Ivan and Soren, was only now rediscovering what it was like to have an array of delectable food placed in front of her prepared for consumption. It wasn’t strange that they should all concentrate on chewing and swallowing, but their lack of pleasure was.
Anna barely tasted the perfectly browned roasted meat or the crusty bread. It all turned to dust in her mouth whenever Ivan looked up from his plate. The sword’s Call sounded deep within her hollowed chest. It pulsed with her heartbeat. It inhaled and exhaled on her every breath. As the alpha, how could Ivan not hear it, too? Her mother had known. She’d seen the echo of it in her daughter’s eyes.
The thread of enchantment between her and Soren seemed to sing. He sat right across from her, ignoring it. If either of them gave it permission, the connection between them would click into place and become complete.
Instead, they chewed and swallowed and did their best to ignore the powerful magic that was as uninvited in the room as she was.
“Patrice has done wonders with the team of cooks I’ve hired for the kitchen. We suggested she might want to retire, but she’s been baking almost nonstop with the new appliances,” Elena said. When no one responded, she continued calmly, as if she was used to talking to herself. “We’re doing all we can to help everyone with the transition to modern life. It’s challenging but not impossible.” She looked pointedly at Soren’s tunic, but he kept eating as if he didn’t notice.
Anna wanted to tell her that it was more complicated than clothes or table manners. It wasn’t just habit they were trying to overcome. It was post-traumatic stress. It was heartache. It was severed companionship that could never be mended.
Before she realized what was happening, Anna’s hands began to tingle in response to her stress. If her gloves had been off, the glowing veins would have given her away. As it was, only Soren noticed her sudden stiffening and panicked tension as she tamped back down the inadvertently summoned power from the Ether.
“Thank you for dinner, Elena. Everything was delicious. But I’ve traveled a long way and I’m exhausted,” Anna said. She dropped her utensils and stood abruptly. Her chair was knocked backward, but she let it lie where it had fallen. She held her hands in front of her, clasped with threaded fingers, and backed toward the door.
Ivan stood.
It was the polite thing to do. It was also dangerous. Because Anna’s power responded as if to a threat. Beneath her gloves, the power threatened to burn to the surface of the hands that sought to contain it. She’d tamped it down. It didn’t matter. She’d yet to master complete control of her abilities and Ivan was the greatest potential threat she’d faced. Even greater than the feral white wolf.
Whether she saw Anna’s fear or whether she felt Ivan’s tension, Elena reached to place her hand on the alpha’s arm. He looked from Anna to his wife, and his tension melted. He smiled and the wolf in his eyes receded.
Soren slowly rose to his feet as if he knew a sudden move would be dangerous. His eyes locked onto hers.
“I’ll escort Anna to her room,” he said. He spoke her true name as if it was difficult, as if every time he referred to her as “Anna” he also reminded himself to guard against her.
“Just like old times,” Anna managed tersely.
No one laughed. It was a poignant joke. One that hurt more than it helped. She’d had less trouble controlling her Volkhvy abilities on her mother’s island. Probably because no one there saw her as the enemy. And because she’d been far away from Soren. His nearness magnified the Call of the emerald sword.
“Come back to us, brother,” Ivan said, as if he knew they planned a dangerous mission.
“Always,” Soren promised. He circled around the table without taking his intent gaze off Anna. She stood, trembling with the effort of resisting the sword’s Call and the Ether’s energy. No one asked her to return. Not even Elena.
Chapter 5 (#u740aa1bc-7ca5-5be8-8708-468e96d63461)
Soren came to her side, but he made no move to reach for her arm or to extend his. He waited, watchful and still, until she stiffly thanked Ivan and Elena for the meal and turned for the door. If he had touched her, gloves or not, she might have glowed brighter than the candlelight that illuminated the room. As it was, she was able to force the power to recede as they stepped into the cool dark corridor to head for the spiral staircase that led to her bedchamber.
They had placed her in the tower room. Either for her own protection or for theirs. She wondered if the aviary on the roof had been modernized as well, but she wasn’t comfortable enough to ask to see it or to go exploring. The roof had been Bell’s sanctuary. They all seemed to think Bell was lost. Ivan and Soren treated her as an entirely new threat. The difference in perception stung because it echoed the doubts she had in herself.
So she stepped lightly up the winding stone stairway with Soren by her side. She was glad she wouldn’t have to see him in the place they had been closest. He had kept watch on the floor at the foot of her bed in the aviary for too many years to count. He’d been privy to her dreams and nightmares and all her quiet confidences in the dark when no one else was around.
The tower was a less personal space.
They climbed silently until they reached the upper room. There, the heavy old artisan-crafted door had been repaired and replaced on sturdy hinges after Ivan had crashed through it to save Elena from the witchblood prince Grigori. Its bottom half was polished oak. Its top half was scrolling iron bars in the shape of thorny vines and roses.
The thorns and roses were Vasilisa’s motif. She had built the castle for her champion wolf shifters after all.
Soren stopped. Anna paused for only a second, expecting him to speak. When he didn’t, she continued on. She opened the door, paused again and then closed it as he continued to wait in silence. Perhaps he wanted to be certain she was locked away for the night where she could do no harm.
Soft electric lamps lit the dark curves of the round room, and they reflected off the gem tones of the stained glass windows that had been retrofitted into the tall narrow openings of the windows that ringed the room.
The heavy door had clanged as it shut. There was an antique key in its lock. She waited for Soren to reach and twist it. But she waited in vain. Her relief was palpable. If he’d reached for the key, she might have had to stop him. He barely moved, only blinking and breathing as they stood face-to-face with the bars between them.
“There are people in this castle who haven’t forgiven your mother for what she did to us. It’s a mistake to consider Bronwal free from the curse. It’s no safer for you to go wandering at night than it was before. Perhaps less so. Do you understand?” Soren said quietly.
Anna’s heartbeat was loud in her ears. This wasn’t concern for her well-being. It couldn’t be. He must seek to hurt her with the knowledge that he wasn’t the only one who didn’t welcome her here. The curse was broken, but its effects lingered on. As Bell, she’d had the run of the place with her loyal red wolf by her side. They’d slipped throughout the massive structure, gleaning and foraging and exploring whenever they materialized. It had been a hard-knock subsistence full of deprivation and dust.
But, hard or not, it had been hers and his, together.
Standing there, looking at Soren’s face through the bars of what would be her prison this night, with a full stomach and fine clothes and all the power of the Ether a finger flick away, Anna wanted to weep. Or to rail at the fate that had separated them forever.
“I’m tired. My only plan is to sleep before our journey tomorrow,” Anna said.
He stepped closer to the bars, and she didn’t back away. Her feet seemed to have rooted to the ground right when she needed them to be nimble and quick. He was only a foot away, and the barrier of the iron vines seemed like no barrier at all. His amber eyes were dark in the shadows. So dark they were almost black. They stood out against his russet hair and beard. She couldn’t help it. Her gaze dropped to find his lips where they peeked from the red waves of his beard. It didn’t matter that the direction of her gaze was barely telegraphed by the flicker of her lashes. Or that she disciplined herself immediately and brought her attention back to his dark eyes.
He had seen the look.
He had seen whatever desires the flicker of her lashes revealed.
Her cheeks heated. The rise in color would be starkly revealed against her pale skin. But she was no coward. She didn’t lower her chin or look away. She faced him, and she watched as her interest in his lips and her blush caused his brow to furrow and his face to tense.
“It isn’t your plans that concern me. It’s your presence. Vasilisa is an ongoing threat to our safety even as she currently helps us to recover. We’ve experienced the volatility of her favor. How quickly it can change from love to hate. Your very existence as her daughter threatens us all,” Soren said. “The curse was for you. Her power is in you. How far will you go for love? How quickly will your love turn to hate?”
She didn’t need him to say it. She felt it in her tingling fingers. She’d seen it in her mother’s actions. She’d endured their effects as much as Soren and all the other denizens of Bronwal.
“I won’t apologize for surviving,” Anna said. “Not even for surviving the revelation of my Volkhvy parentage.” Her gut was cold and hollow, but there was a tiny flame in her chest where her heart used to be. Its stalwart flickering kept her going. She was afraid of her blood, but fear wouldn’t stop her. It never had.
Losing Soren was bad.
But losing her courage would be worse.
“Who survived? What survived? You pulse with the energy of the Ether that ate us every Cycle. It was relentless. Unstoppable. It sucked the life out of us all, year by year, coming and going until so many were lost. I might never see my brother’s face again. All because of the Ether. The power you channel is evil. There is no light. It all comes from Darkness. The Ether is a relentless vacuum we barely escaped, only to find its energy walks and talks beside us in you,” Soren said.
“The Ether is no different than the sun or the tides. It is energy. How we choose to use it determines whether it is Dark or Light. Whether you accept that fact or not is no concern of mine,” Anna said. Her words were true. Dark or Light—it was a choice, not an inevitability. She had to believe it. That was the only way she could go on.
“What will you choose one day, Volkhvy princess? When your back is up against a wall? With unlimited Ether at your fingertips, how will you restrain yourself when your own mother—a much more experienced witch—failed?” Soren asked. He suddenly reached for the bars and his grip was white-knuckle and fierce. The rattle of iron rang out and echoed down the winding stairs. Anna jumped in response, but she didn’t retreat.
She searched his eyes for the faith in her she’d once thought unshakable. The red wolf had never doubted her, not once in centuries. Until her parentage was revealed. And then he had turned away. He hadn’t looked back until now. Her presence forced him to see what she’d become. She could read nothing in Soren’s gaze. She could only sense his heightened emotion through the tension in his grip.
“We shall see,” she said. She could make no promises. That was what hurt the most. His doubts were echoed in her own thoughts. There was no way of knowing how she would handle the abilities her Volkhvy blood gave her. So far she had chosen careful control. Even with the Call of the emerald sword increasing the energy that pulsed in her. But the use of power was a slippery slope. She had her mother’s example as an ever-present warning.
She jumped again when Soren released the bars as quickly as he had grabbed them. He pushed back from them and dropped his hands to his sides.
“We leave at dawn. On horseback until we reach Cyrna. I won’t step willingly into the Ether for you. No enchantments. No tricks. You might recall my survival instinct is as healthy as your own,” Soren said.
The tingling in her hands turned to ice as he walked away. If they traveled without using the Ether, the trip would last for weeks rather than days. She was a survivor, but she wasn’t sure she could survive being close to Soren for that long. The Call tormented her. But his nearness both tormented and enticed.
The magnetism between them was a cruel jest in a world determined to keep them apart.
* * *
Elena dressed for bed in one of her black wolf’s favorite nightgowns. It was a diaphanous silk spun through with glittering silver threads that reminded Ivan of the lair where they’d first made love. They still escaped to his former retreat sometimes when the demands of bringing Bronwal back from the brink became too stressful.
The gown settled against her skin softly. Its thin white material wasn’t much protection against the chill of their bedchamber’s stone walls, but Ivan’s big warm body would soon rectify that.
Bumps rose along her skin and her nipples peaked obviously under her gown, but it wasn’t the cold. She was only anticipating her husband’s touch.
Ivan Romanov was a powerful, considerate lover who made up for his years of forced celibacy by devoting himself to her pleasure whenever they could escape into each other’s arms. She hadn’t told him yet that their frequent lovemaking had resulted in a quickening deep inside her.
Elena gently ran both hands down to her stomach and pressed her palms against the life that she and the alpha wolf had created together. Ferocious joy claimed her as well as a poignant need to protect her unborn child from the effects of the curse that still haunted his or her future home. Ivan would be a wonderful father—if he could temper his protective instincts, which would be even fiercer than hers.
She heard his step outside the door and she lowered her hands lest her instinctive maternal position gave her secret away too soon. She needed to tell him, but she was worried about her friend. At one time Anna had been Ivan’s charge, but Elena knew her husband no longer saw the other woman as family.
Ivan was a good man, but he was also the alpha wolf, one of the legendary Romanovs, and he was sure to be proactive in protecting the heir to his throne. Elena had to break the news of his pending fatherhood to him, but she was concerned about Anna and Soren.
One dinner with them had shown her that the red wolf and his former companion had much to settle between them. She hated to compound their difficulties with an alpha wolf on the protective prowl.
Ivan came into the room with a furrowed brow and a distracted frown on his scarred but handsome face. In spite of her secret and her plan to improve his mood before she revealed it, Elena’s heart leaped in her chest. The sight of her husband had always caused her breath to catch and her heartbeat to quicken. Even before she’d realized she was being Called to be his mate by the enchanted sapphire sword, she’d been drawn to him because of his heroic presence.
Walking, talking, making love or simply brooding as he was tonight, he was legendary. His shifting abilities had been written into his genes by Vasilisa’s enchantment before he was born. He had been raised as one of her champions, and he had lived up to that charge every day and night since, even during all the centuries he’d been trapped in the curse because of his father’s betrayal. He still believed in standing against the Dark Volkhvy. He just wasn’t as trusting of the Light Volkhvy as he’d once been.
Still, he’d never once given up. He’d never faltered. He’d stood for decades, alone, after his brothers had given in to their shift to escape the endless torture. Bronwal had been trapped in a cycle that sucked them into the nothingness of the Ether again and again with only a month of relief every ten years.
Until she and Ivan had come together to face Vasilisa and defeat Grigori, the witchblood prince. They’d broken the curse. They’d fallen in love. The legends she’d loved as a child, the sapphire sword and their stubborn determination, had triumphed.
But there was still much to be done to claim the happily-ever-after they’d earned.
“You look as if you’re a few seconds away from running into the night to howl at the moon,” Elena said. She walked slowly toward Ivan as she said it, giving him time to notice the gown and the graceful movement of her naked body beneath it. She’d been a ballet dancer before she became a warrior and a black wolf’s wife. She knew how to place each foot for maximum effect.
Her performance was rewarded by the sudden, intense focus of her husband’s gaze. His brow smoothed. His frown eased into a smile. His hard lips softened and curved into that special smile he reserved for her when they were alone. She smiled in return as she came up against the wall of his brawny physique. He was well over six feet and muscular as only a legendary warrior born in the Dark Ages could be. Yet his massive arms wrapped around her delicate dancer’s body with loving care.
He knew how to be passionate and gentle. Powerful and considerate. But even when he got carried away, she didn’t complain. Russian ballet had been much harder on her than Ivan Romanov had ever been, even when he’d been an adversary training her out of necessity and resisting the magnetism between them.
Her body was petite, but it was powerful in its own right. She’d wielded the sapphire blade with muscles honed by years of precision and sacrifice. And she’d made love to her big savage warrior with every ounce of her skill and power. She always had, even when she’d thought each time they came together would be their last.
He’d avoided close relationships for years before she came to his castle, but with all his stoicism and control, he hadn’t been able to resist her kiss and her touch.
Tonight, he didn’t try to resist. He sank into her kiss as if she saved him by merely offering him her eager lips and tongue. It was a long while before they spoke again, but finally he must have sensed that she had things to say. He lifted his head and she allowed her hands to fall away from the long hair she’d loosened from the queue he often wore down his back.
His hair was as black as his wolf. The freed waves gleamed as they slipped through her fingers.
She almost pulled him back down to her mouth, because his lips were swollen from her hunger and his eyes sparkled, free of concern. But she needed to make sure he understood that his brother was in trouble.
“Soren doesn’t know there are Light Volkhvy besides Anna in the castle,” Elena said.
Ivan’s brow furrowed again, but only slightly. His hands roamed up and down the curve of her back as if her waist and the slight roundness of her bottom below it soothed him. She understood. Her hands had fallen down to the swell of his forearms. They were strong and warm beneath her fingers. He was no longer a figure in a storybook of legends. He was solid. He was real. And he would be a father by the spring of next year.
“I warned them all to avoid him. They’re necessary to Bronwal’s recovery. It would take decades to modernize without them. You and I agreed allowing Vasilisa to help us recover is a necessary risk,” Ivan said.
Suddenly, he scooped her up and carried her toward the bed in the center of the room. Would she ever grow accustomed to his grace? He was muscular but not muscle-bound. Whether it was the wolf in his veins or simply the sheer physicality of his long life, he was almost as agile as a dancer.
Elena wrapped her legs around his waist. The airy folds of her dress parted and fell away to allow her the pleasure of pressing her hot core against him. His large hands cupped her bottom. She held his shoulders, and his freed hair tickled her nearly bare breasts.
“But that was before we knew how Soren would feel toward all Volkhvy...even the Light. He’s terrified for Lev. And devastated by what’s become of Bell... I mean, Anna,” Elena said. She tried to focus on what had to be said even as her husband lowered his face to her chest to nuzzle her nipples through her gown. His hot tongue flicked out to tease her, and the gauzy material was no barrier at all. She gasped. She arched against him and then moaned as she felt the heat of his lean stomach between her legs.
“Bell was our sister. His feelings are understandable. It’s hard to see her as Vasilisa’s daughter now,” Ivan said. His breath was hot against the wet silk and her pink skin that shone through it.
Elena reached for his face. She cupped his stubbled jaw and lifted his chin so she could meet his eyes. They glittered in the soft light of the new electric lamps. She saw so much there. Desire. Love. Worry for his people. Concern for his family.
“Anna was a sister to you,” Elena said. “But I don’t think she was ever that to Soren.” She watched Ivan as her meaning became clear. “He thinks he’s lost her, even though she’s right beside him to this day. I’m only surprised she was able to stay away as long as she did. She has more willpower than I ever had.”
“But he hates Volkhvy,” Ivan said.
“If he doesn’t come to grips with his feelings for witches, he’ll never accept his feelings for Anna,” Elena said.
“He’s devoted to Lev. He won’t let anything or anyone come between him and saving our brother,” Ivan said. “And I can’t blame him. We might be allowing the Light Volkhvy to help us restore the castle and help our people, but we don’t fully trust them. How can we? Vasilisa gave in to the Darkness when she cursed us.”
“She thought your father had killed her little girl,” Elena reminded him. His hold had eased so she could slide down his body to sit on the edge of the bed. She reached for the hem of his loosened shirt and lifted it inch by inch. He sucked in a great gasp of air when she leaned forward to kiss his stomach. As always, she found his scars and flicked them with her tongue. She saw his erection grow beneath his trousers. They would make love and it would be as much of a wish for happiness for others as it was for their own pleasure and relief.
“Seeing the potential for Darkness in a Light Volkhvy queen causes me to distrust Anna, too. She’s Vasilisa’s daughter, and she left with her mother without protest. She chose her path. We didn’t send her away. She gave me no chance to invite her to stay. She made no effort to maintain her loyalty to us and to Bronwal. She turned her back. She walked away. I don’t blame Soren for doubting her. I doubt her myself,” Ivan said.
“You are a king who feels abandoned by one of his people. But, Ivan, she is here now because of her love and loyalty to us. As for Soren, he was Anna’s closest friend and companion. At some point he’ll have to trust her or lose her,” Elena said. It was a terrifying thought, because she’d come so close to losing Ivan. Hearing him express his doubts over Anna also confirmed her earlier fears. He might overreact to the perceived threat when he found out about the baby.
He heard the fear in her voice. His strong hands came to cup the sides of her face. She tilted her chin to look up at him. It was a long, long way up. His hair shadowed his face as he looked down at her, but she was no longer fooled by the darkness. His scars, his stoic perseverance, his powerful body had all hidden a hurt man within the legendary monster. She had found him. She had saved him as he’d saved her. She had to trust him now. His honor. His integrity. Yes, he was a wolf shifter. The alpha wolf shifter in a triumvirate of three Romanov shifters created by Vasilisa. But he was also her heart’s mate.
She could only hope Soren and Anna could stand against even worse odds than she and Ivan had faced. And she could only pray that once Ivan learned about the baby, his protective instincts wouldn’t cause even greater complications for his younger brother.
* * *
It was a mistake to go to the roof. He went anyway. Taking a route he’d traveled on four legs more often than two. It was both strange and painfully familiar when he came around the corner of an eastern turret to face the aviary Bell had called her home. She’d chosen the inaccessible, easily fortified stone building with shuttered window openings as the safest place in a castle that had few safe places. It had been smart. It had also been telling. She’d been on top of the world here, but she’d also been separate from Bronwal itself, as if she never felt like she belonged.
No one had questioned her proclivity for retreat even before the curse came down on them all. She’d claimed the aviary as a child’s playhouse long before she’d claimed it as a bedchamber. Looking back, he was sorry that someone hadn’t questioned her need for a hideaway back then. It hadn’t occurred to him. Not when he’d been a young teen. Not later when he was in the form of the red wolf. He’d joined her in the aviary as her nighttime protector during the curse without thought to what it meant for her to have always felt safer apart.
Had she instinctively known his father was lying about rescuing her during a Dark Volkhvy attack when, in fact, it had been his father who had destroyed the village and the human foster parents Vasilisa had asked to shelter her daughter?
It pained him to think that he hadn’t done half as good a job protecting his companion as he’d thought.
Now she was back.
And she wasn’t.
She would never truly be back again.
What they had had was even more lost to them, because it had never actually been.
She hadn’t been an orphan given a sheltering home and a family to care for her. She’d been stolen, kidnapped and treated as a foundling when she was actually a princess.
The early-autumn night was cold in the mountains. His breath came from his lips as a vapor that floated away in clouds around his head. But he didn’t go inside the aviary. He couldn’t stand the air of neglect and abandonment he might find. Instead, he pressed his back against the chilled stone of the turret’s wall and allowed his body to sink to a sitting position. He wrapped his arms around his knees.
Cold was good. Alone was good. The star-filled sky above his head brought clarity. He tried to focus on those diamond studs of light and forget the witch’s big green eyes. She looked at him as if she was hungry to memorize his features. Never mind that his overgrown hair obscured them. If the color that rose on her cheeks was any indication, she’d found what she was looking for.
She’d looked from his eyes to his lips and back again.
Just a look. Nothing more. And he’d been hard-pressed to stand his ground without pulling her into his arms or backing away. He’d felt her hand on his head a million times before. She’d given him the comfort of her touch and the companionship he’d so desperately needed when Lev had abandoned him. It was beyond cruel that he would want her touch now that he was a man, even though she was no longer the woman she’d been before.
Her touch would be no comfort.
He shuddered from a yearning that refused to be banished by the cold or by his best intentions.
Soren missed Bell, but there was no denying he desired the witch she’d become.
His desire was a foolish physical reaction he would fight until he destroyed the sword. Surely the enchantment of the emerald in the sword’s hilt was the reason he was drawn to Anna, the Light Volkhvy princess. He wasn’t a young pup to be drawn to a woman based on her beauty or the feminine curves of her body. He was wiser than that. His reaction to her was manipulated by magic, and he didn’t need any more evidence not to trust it than the loss of his brother right when he’d been so close to bringing him home.
He should have prevented Anna from frightening Lev away. He’d been thrown by her sudden appearance after so many months. Soren fisted his hands and leaned his forehead on his knees to block out the infinite stars. He should have been completely immune to any old feelings he’d had as the red wolf. He should have driven her away before she could do any harm. Instead, he’d been shocked by his body’s yearning to touch her, to confirm the pull he felt was mutual. His reaction to her as a woman had distracted him from the Volkhvy power she could channel.
He’d been completely unprepared to face who and what she’d become.
His shock had allowed what had happened. It was his fault Lev had disappeared again. It would be on him if his brother never returned.
Beneath the crystalline sky, by the harsh light of a thousand stars, Soren vowed he would not be caught unprepared again.
* * *
Anna changed out of the white dress that hadn’t served her well. It did no good to wave the flag of truce with an enemy who didn’t believe in parley. Soren was blinded by his distrust of witches and his distaste of the Ether. As long as she channeled its power, he would see her as tainted. Yet how could he expect her to be anything other than her mother’s daughter—even if her mother was the Light Volkhvy queen?
She prepared for bed in new ways that weren’t at all automatic for her. Hot running water and soft new sleeping garments might be a delight to her for the rest of her life. She appreciated the luxury and comfort, even as she braced herself against the discomfort of other sensations.
There was a filament of enchantment stretched between her and Soren Romanov. It pulled painfully from deep within her chest to wherever he had gone to pass the night. Like a string stretched taut almost to the point of breaking, the filament threatened to release if she moved too suddenly or breathed too deeply.
She was caught and held by someone who didn’t want to hold her at all.
It was the sword that created the tenuous but inexorable bond in spite of her best intentions to let the red wolf go. She pressed both hands against her chest to try to ease the pain. For sleep, she’d allowed herself to remove the protective gloves. The tingle was slight now that she was alone. There were distant threats, but she was tired and her power ebbed low. As she pressed her palms against the pain, the natural body heat in her hands soothed her.
It would be a relief to sever the thread that bound her and Soren together. For a while, as the late-night world grew silent and the doubts in her head grew loud, Anna thought about her aviary. She’d retreated to the roof of the castle so many times. Did her aviary wait there for her still, even though nothing and no one else had waited for her?
The idea of running quickly through the sleeping castle on one of the routes she would know even in the pitch darkness was seductive. But this was no longer her home. She had been reduced to a guest. An unwelcome guest. Her aviary wasn’t hers anymore.
Besides, the red wolf wouldn’t be there.
It would be cold and empty, filled only with the echoes of a life that was no longer hers. Her pain increased with that vision of her new reality.
Would the sword’s destruction really end her torment?
She feared the enchanted filament that bound her to Soren Romanov wasn’t entirely dependent on the emerald sword.
Chapter 6 (#u740aa1bc-7ca5-5be8-8708-468e96d63461)
His sleep was never deep. Soren’s body had rejected the oblivion of the Ether for so long it couldn’t rest. But he did shut down occasionally. He lost the fight to stay awake. Never completely. He tossed and turned. He called out from the abyss of half consciousness, where his fear of nothingness and cold taunted him with familiar, icy fingers.
With Anna nearby it was suddenly much worse. He’d been running for days. He’d experienced the loss of his brother all over again. He’d had to face Anna’s transformation. As an enchanted Romanov shape-shifter, he was powerful. He had endurance unlike a regular man. But he wasn’t indefatigable. Sleep came for him eventually. It always did. But even asleep he couldn’t relax. He fought rest as if it was the Ether trying to pull him away from Bronwal and his family.
Or from her.
The witch was nearby and he couldn’t leave her. His panic as he sank into sleep thudded his heart in his chest and made his breathing quick.
His nightmare was always the same. He wandered a vast nightscape forest. Alone. Sometimes as the red wolf. Sometimes as a man. But always certain that he was almost out of time. He never understood what he needed to do before time ran out. He only knew with certain dread that if the Ether took him, all would be lost.
This time he was the wolf. He padded the pathways of the nightmare forest on four paws. Then he ran. It was useless. The pathways were always a maze with no beginning and no end in sight. Like the curse, his nightmare trapped him and held him until the Ether could claim him.
But unlike the curse, he had no one by his side to help him face the dark.
It was that loss that made him howl at the moonless sky in his nightmare. He called and called for a woman who couldn’t reply.
* * *
The next morning, Soren watched his brother approach. His spine stiffened, because he could see the dark thunderclouds on the alpha wolf’s brow even before he crossed the courtyard. Soren planted his feet and braced his shoulders as he stood with the horses an old groom he barely recognized had prepared for him and Anna.
Something was wrong.
He hadn’t expected to see Ivan again this morning. They had said farewell last night.
His hands tightened on the halters of the large mounts as they tried to toss their heads in response to the emotions of the alpha they could also sense as he came closer.
Ivan Romanov was in his human form, but there was no mistaking the gleam of the black wolf in his eyes. A hint of dawn was all that was needed to illuminate that flash of savagery waiting to be freed. Soren swallowed against the howl that tried to crawl up his throat to seek an emotional release. His red wolf was ferocious, but it bowed without his permission before his big brother, the alpha.
“Where is she?” Ivan asked in almost-pained tones.
Soren wasn’t surprised he didn’t begin with a “good morning.” The shift rode Ivan Romanov. It tightened his muscles and hardened his jaw. Ivan had often looked as steely and fierce toward the end of the curse, when he’d had to fight off the black wolf every day. His brother was moments away from howling at the rising sun.
But why? What new threat did they face?
Soren was no longer Anna’s protector, but his first instinct was to stand between his brother’s imminent shift and the witch who was supposed to join him in the courtyard soon.
“She’s meeting me here at dawn,” Soren said. He exuded calm in spite of his inner tension. He met the black wolf’s potential fury with ice and then tried to diffuse it. “That’s why I’m holding two horses.”
Ivan blinked and stepped back as if he’d only just noticed the giant destriers his brother held. Their reaction to the alpha’s close presence had intensified. Soren had to tighten his hold on their halters. The warhorses were afraid. Ivan noticed their fear, and the wildness in his eyes subsided. Soren watched as the black wolf retreated deeper within his brother, leaving a calmer leader in his place.
“I won’t ask where you’re going. If you’d wanted me to know, you would have shared that information last night,” Ivan said. Suddenly, he stepped to Soren and placed a heavy hand on his shoulder. Instead of rearing, the horses calmed. Perhaps they could smell the man now that he had controlled his wolf. Ivan met him face-to-face, gaze to gaze. His seriousness was palpable. Soren’s forced calm only got icier with the eye contact. His brother was building to something big. He could think of only one thing that would cause the alpha to leave his warm bed and meet him at the break of dawn. “Make certain she doesn’t return,” Ivan continued.
Soren was the red wolf. He heard the alpha’s command in his brother’s voice. He saw the black wolf deep down in Ivan’s eyes. His whole body went numb from the cold of the calm he forced through sheer willpower alone.
Who had told Ivan about the sword?
The alpha was warning him away from an unacceptable mate. Soren agreed. Hell, Anna agreed. So why was his internal response a long, echoing howl of refusal? He tamped it down. He clenched his teeth. He held himself still, because if he moved a millimeter, it might become a shift to challenge the alpha’s authority. Ivan’s eyes widened. In spite of Soren’s best efforts, his brother was wise beyond his apparent years. He looked like a twenty-five-year-old man. He was, in fact, much older. He must have sensed or seen Soren’s visceral response to his order.
A noise interrupted before the standoff could erupt into violence. They both broke away from the stare to look up. Elena appeared at a window high above them. She’d thrown it open, and several ravens had lifted off from their sentinel perches on its ledge. White curtains billowed outward around her blanket-wrapped form. They were too far away to see her face, but the sound of Ivan’s name drifted with the sound of flapping wings.
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