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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.
