She wasn’t going to kiss him.
The white wolf was coming closer, and all she could think about was the man who had cushioned her from the hard ground as she fell—only to become even harder and an even greater threat beneath her.
Because of how badly she wanted to taste him.
Once again her gaze went to his lips.
She resented the untrimmed beard that tried to hide the full swell of his mouth from her view. She could only see a hint of where her lips longed to press. A hint was enough to steal her breath and tighten something deep inside her. The coil had become a hot knot of desire where the earlier tingles had been. It tried to propel her toward the possibility of one lip-to-lip indulgence, one flick of the tip of her tongue.
He must have seen the hunger in her face.
“Anna,” he breathed, and it was doubly seductive because it was the first time he’d used her real name without sounding as if he used it as a reminder that she was his enemy. It didn’t matter that it was a reluctant plea. She barely had to lower her face before his hands came up to the back of her head and he pulled her the rest of the way.
One warm taste was all it took to shatter her completely.
She inhaled a gasp of surprise that tasted of the forest around them, but also the forest long captured in the red curls that had escaped his attempt to tame them. She reached to touch his human hair as their lips pressed together, deeper, again. She was no longer able to resist lightly threading her fingers through the silky strands, but when his mouth opened, she forgot his hair. His tongue met hers in a sudden stolen exploration. She registered his heat, the rough and smooth textures, the intimacy of sharing breath as he gulped for air, too, and then their mouths parted as if they both were shocked at what had happened.
Anna pushed back from his chest and rose in a scramble to her feet. At the same time, Soren stood. She struggled to breathe. Her cheeks were hot. Her whole body was inflamed. Soren’s skin was flushed. He pushed his hair back from his face as if he needed to clear the way for oxygen to get through and fill his lungs.
Nothing could have prevented that kiss.
Not Lev coming closer. Not all the willpower in the world. It had been rolling toward them on a tsunami of inevitability since Soren had regained his human form and she’d come back to Bronwal.
* * *
Anna had been right. Skin to skin was devastating. There was no chance of recovering from lips to lips and tongue to tongue. He could barely breathe, and now he knew forbidden fruit tasted of mint and Anna’s heated sighs.
From the second he’d landed on the ground with Anna sprawled on top of him, he’d been unable to make rational decisions. It wasn’t the time for their first kiss. There would never be the right time for such intimacy between them. But there had been an inevitability he couldn’t resist.
Their bodies melded perfectly together, even with no effort and no comfortable accommodation. Her lush figure—one he knew better than he should from their years of camaraderie—was a sudden pleasure of full breasts and intriguing curves against his human chest. Her lovely face—so familiar and dear to him at one time—was flushed and her lips were parted as her breath came quickly from between them.
And then she’d seen him looking at her. She’d caught her breath and held it as if she waited to see if he was brave enough to follow through with what his body told him to do.
She was there, in his arms, and he couldn’t deny that he was overwhelmed with the sensation of wanting her there, needing her there, enjoying her there. It wasn’t a leisurely moment where they were free to indulge or deny impulses with careful thought and the summoning of maximum self-control.
It was sudden, quick and hot. His hunger rose and, judging from her response, hers had, too.
Now the white wolf howled, coming closer and closer, but all Soren could hear and feel was his own frustration at the distance between him and a witch he wanted to kiss again. He should be glad the mistake had ended as quickly as it had begun. He should be glad she looked as if she regretted the momentary lapse of judgment and control.
Instead, he felt an echoing howl deep inside his chest.
He wanted to taste Anna again. Deeper and longer. He wanted to explore every inch of her curves with his human hands and indulge all the desires that arose, both hers and his, as a result of that exploration.
Yes. Skin to skin was devastating. But not because of the electric energy of the Ether that her Volkhvy blood allowed her to channel. She’d controlled that even as their lips met. It had taken great effort. He’d felt her trembling as she’d fought for command, but her control over her abilities had held.
As he stood facing her, it was the simple requited passion between them that devastated. The power of the Ether was nothing compared to their chemistry. He’d tried not to think of her since the night of the Gathering, when her parentage had been revealed. He’d tried and failed the minute he shifted to become a man. Their sudden separation should have been a reprieve. It had been torture instead. Now he found that being with her was a different kind of torture. Fantasy and impossible what-ifs had been replaced by the living, breathing reality of a woman he longed to touch in spite of her blood and his loyalty to his brothers. The kiss had been a mistake, but one he would long to commit again and again.
* * *
“That can’t happen again,” Anna said. The emerald sword sang I told you so in her veins, pulsing with the beat of her heart. They had both decided the sword had to be destroyed. The kiss only made the inevitable that much harder to accomplish.
“It won’t,” Soren said. He sounded so certain. Much more certain than he’d tasted and felt. His lips had been eager on hers, startled but willing and quick to know exactly what to do. How could such a wild, hard man have such a soft, sensual mouth?
She found herself looking at his lips. Even partially hidden by his beard, they drew her attention. He should be frowning. His mouth should be hard and angry. It wasn’t. His lips were still soft and full. If she stepped toward him again, they would welcome her even if he didn’t.
But then, his mouth changed.
“Get behind me and don’t say a word,” Soren said. Anna froze. The pleasure she’d experienced moments before fled, leaving her cold. The man in front of her no longer looked at her lips, and his mouth had become a tight, stiff line. He looked over her shoulder at a threat she could suddenly sense as the fine hairs rose on the back of her neck.
“He’s here,” she guessed. But she could already hear the breathing of the large, winded wolf that had appeared out of the forest behind her.
“I’ve come to bring you home, brother,” Soren said loudly.
Anna tried not to jump at his sudden false exuberance. She decided to follow his instructions. He knew the white wolf better than anyone. If she couldn’t use her powers, she had to survive in other ways. She moved forward, carefully and slowly, to place herself behind Soren. Doing so caused her to face the white wolf. Once she turned around, her heart began to pound and a wash of adrenaline flooded her body. Lev was an even more monstrous sight than he’d been before. His fur was more matted and dirty with dried blood. His teeth were bared. He filled the entire width of the path with his broad shoulders and widespread paws. Her hands tingled almost painfully in response. She ground her teeth against the instinctive desire to tap into the Ether.
“Lev. Come with me to Bronwal. You can lie by the fire and rest. Ivan wants to see you,” Soren said.
The white wolf growled in response. He wasn’t looking at Soren. His focus was on Anna. He stepped forward one pace, then another. She couldn’t tap into her powers, and the sword was somewhere far away in the possession of the Dark Volkhvy. It wasn’t a decision to reach for her former protector. It was pure survival instinct.
Without thinking, Anna reached to place one gloved hand on Soren’s shoulder. She shouldn’t have touched him.
She sought an anchor and a reminder of why she couldn’t remove her gloves. What she received was an electric jolt through linen and leather that caused her to cry out. Somewhere the emerald sword flared. She sensed it even if she was too far away to see, and a sympathetic flash of green sparked behind her eyelids.
Her cry only seemed to throw fuel on the flames of Lev’s raw, savage emotions. The white wolf leaped forward. Soren reached for his brother’s fur on either side of his head, but even as muscular and as strong as he was in his human form, he was no match for a giant enchanted wolf.
Soren’s fists tightened and held, but Lev’s jaw closed over Anna’s arm before Soren could prevent it.
Her gloves weren’t useless. The thick leather protected her from having her arm torn off by the white wolf’s ferocious bite, but Lev’s teeth shredded the leather. Her skin was exposed and unprotected. The tips of his teeth snagged flesh. Her blood was shed. Anna’s power flared from the gaps in her glove.
Lev’s bite loosened, and a brilliant flash of green light repelled him backward away from them. Through her pain, Anna saw Lev land hard on the packed earth of the mountain path. He didn’t move. Not one of his giant muscles twitched. Her pain was too great to care. Driven by her agony, her power flared again. This time instead of using the Ether as a weapon, she used it as an escape. The white wolf didn’t move as the world disappeared. Before Anna lost consciousness, she felt the frigid cold of the Ether’s vacuum, and she heard Soren shout his brother’s name.
Chapter 8
They often faced the end of the month in the same place, in the same way. They climbed to the ramparts of Bronwal and watched the sunset. Bathed in orange and gold, they looked out over the mountains. In time, after many sunsets, Anna would hold the scruff on the red wolf’s neck where his russet hair grew slightly longer and thicker. She would burrow her fingers there and hold on as the rays flared brightly just before they faded away.
Like the sun, so solid and hot and real, they, too, would disappear with the last rays of light and heat.
Anna’s tight grip was always his last sensation after all else disappeared. They both fought the Ether even after hundreds of years of being unable to stay. The stone they sat on. The immovable mountain they faced. All the people of Bronwal vanished around them.
Soren was the last to disappear, because Anna didn’t let go of him. His molecules stayed together for her. He fought for her. He struggled with his last fully formed thought to stay by her side.
He always failed.
With all his strength and determination. With his powerful body and his large heart. With his teeth and claws and massive muscles.
He still failed.
The Ether took them every time, an inevitable frigid darkness in which he couldn’t find her because there was nothing left of him for her to hold.
* * *
The Ether claimed them for only a few minutes. When they materialized again, Soren fell to his knees, but he didn’t drop the unconscious woman he held in his arms. They were out of the forest. He recognized the ramparts of Bronwal around them. He cradled Anna close. He felt the solid ground beneath him. It had been over quickly, but he still trembled from the cold and the knowledge that he’d been consumed by the Ether one more time without his permission.
Witches could travel through the Ether, but to bring him along with her had been a spectacular feat of power. He was a reluctant passenger and she was injured.
It took him longer than it should have to rise to his feet. Anna was bleeding severely from her injuries. The front of his jacket was covered in her blood. It was a deep, dark crimson so red it was almost black. Volkhvy blood. That evidence of her witchy heritage didn’t prevent him from noticing how pale her face was against his shoulder. If anything, the contrast startled him into action.
“Help me!” he shouted.
They’d materialized outside Anna’s aviary. It must have been instinct that directed the use of her power. She’d brought them to a place where she’d once felt safe. His calls for help rose up into the sky, but no help came from the lower levels of the castle. His voice was hoarse and weak. He couldn’t summon the red wolf’s howl. He’d regained his bearings, though. The numbness of the Ether had faded with the onset of the adrenaline as he noted Anna’s injuries. He made for the stairs as he murmured the kinds of things a man murmurs when he’s trying to save a woman’s life.
For now, it didn’t matter that the woman was a witch or that his brother had tried to kill her.
* * *
Agony racked her body with shudders as Anna regained consciousness. She tried to brace herself against the pain, but she could only ride the waves of it as her teeth chattered.
Then she remembered the white wolf’s lunge. She remembered his massive teeth sinking into her skin.
“No,” she cried out. Gentle hands pressed against her uninjured shoulder and her forehead.
“You’re feverish, child. Shush. Be still. I’ve cleansed and bound your wounds,” Patrice said. The familiar voice of the old housekeeper who had taken care of Bronwal for centuries penetrated her fear and pain. Anna settled back and the firm hands released her.
But the pain was no excuse to keep her eyes closed.
Anna struggled to open her lids and focus.
Patrice bustled in all her usual ways, straightening bedclothes and muttering beneath her breath. The familiarity of her stout aproned figure soothed. But the empty room didn’t.
“Where’s Soren?” Anna asked. She tried to sit up again, but this time Patrice stopped her with a hand on her chest before she managed to rise off the mattress.
“He’s outside the door. Hasn’t left to eat or sleep since he carried you to me two days ago,” Patrice said.
“What happened to Lev?” Anna asked. Her powers had flared in self-defense. She wasn’t sure what she had done to the wolf that had bitten her, but dread nearly overcame her pain. She’d broken her promise.
“You’ll have to ask Soren. All I know is that you used the Ether to escape and that man in the hall is none too happy about it. He’s vowed to stay out of the Ether for the rest of his life, and Romanov wolves live a very long time,” Patrice said.
“I didn’t mean to. It wasn’t a conscious decision. It was instinct,” Anna said. She fell back against the pillows.
“That’s the problem, isn’t it?” Patrice asked. “We’ve all seen where a witch’s instincts can lead.” She moved away from the bed as she spoke, but she didn’t seem afraid. She went about her business as if she merely stated a fact.
Anna didn’t argue. Patrice was right.
“This time you took me through the Ether without my permission. What will you do the next time? Or the next?” Soren asked from the doorway.
Anna blinked to try to bring the big man into focus.
“I didn’t harm Lev even though he hurt me,” Anna said. It was a weak argument for her reliability. It fell on ears that had to be too recently chilled by the black nothingness of the Ether to be sympathetic.
“Lev has disappeared,” Soren said. “When I went back to find him, he was gone. I couldn’t track him. I have no way of knowing if you brought me here and sent him into the Ether never to return.”
She could see Soren’s concern for his brother eating away at him. And the worst part was she couldn’t reassure him. She hadn’t consciously chosen what she’d done. Maybe her fear had banished Lev. Forever. “You just said you acted on instinct. How can we trust that your instincts will never lead you astray? Your mother’s led her into the darkness. So deep and so far gone that she hurt her own daughter in the process. My mother died because my father craved more of the power Vasilisa had used to alter his blood. Volkhvy power can’t be trusted,” Soren said, but his golden-brown eyes tracked from her face to her bandaged shoulder as if he cared about her injury. His focus lingered on the blood seeping from her
wounds to color the white linen Patrice had used to bind them. There was concern in his narrowed eyes. He firmed his lips as if he stopped himself from expressing it, and then his gaze tracked down from her shoulder to her naked hands.
Her gloves had been removed while Patrice treated her injuries.
“I’m not going to hurt anyone,” Anna said. She might be unsure of her abilities and she might still need training in how to harness and use them, but in that moment she was certain she didn’t lie to him. She was determined that her words would be true.
“I know you’re not, because I won’t allow it,” Soren said.
He stood between her and the rest of the castle.
Some part of his heart might still feel for her. He might be sorry that she experienced pain.
But he hadn’t been standing outside her door for two days because he was concerned for her. He’d been guarding her. He’d been protecting the people of Bronwal against the Volkhvy princess in their midst.
She was as an injured and unconscious woman who’d been attacked, unprovoked, by a vicious feral wolf. But she was also a witch. Soren saw her as a danger to his family.
“What do you think she can do in this state?” Patrice interrupted. The housekeeper came from a time when boxing a child’s ears was always an option. She looked as if she would be fully capable of boxing an adult’s ears, as well. She stood near her patient with her fisted hands on her hips. Anna blinked moisture back when she realized the tiny round woman was standing between her and Soren as Soren stood between her and his people.
“It’s okay, Patrice,” Anna said. She refused to cause problems between the servant and the man who had once been Patrice’s master. The old housekeeper might live in the modern world now, but it would be almost impossible for her to leave the castle to seek a life elsewhere. She would have to live out her days here. Anna wanted those days to happy. “I have extra gloves in my backpack. If you fetch them for me, I’ll put them on.”
“Her bag was lashed to the dappled gray’s saddle when it arrived at the stable last night,” Soren said.
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