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“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.
