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 prote
cting 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
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.
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