“Once I attain control of the full measure of my abilities, they wouldn’t dare. But right now, I’m probably a tempting target,” Anna agreed. “I’m not sure Vasilisa thought this through. She probably should have waited until I was better trained to invite so many powerful guests.”
“She knew exactly what she was doing,” Soren said. He placed a hand on Anna’s elbow. Even the thick velvet didn’t cushion her from the heat that flared from that simple contact. “She wants a daughter and a powerful pet. I’m going to disappoint her manipulations.”
“Even if you’re disappointed, as well?” Anna asked. But he didn’t reply. He led her out of the room with his hand on her arm without so much as a glance at the queen, who watched them leave.
As they left the withdrawing room and entered the main arcade that wound to the base of the tiled staircase to the upper floors, the large arched windows that faced the sea were open to the night air. Anna slowed her pace, and Soren allowed it. His grip eased on her arm, and even he seemed to take a breath of the enchanted breeze.
“Your mother relies too much on the island as a defense. The palace is completely unfortified. Anyone could come and go from all the open doors and windows. This artificial climate is an indulgence,” Soren said. But he paused near an open archway and a beam of moonlight fell on his face. The sudden illumination penetrated his defenses, because she could suddenly see him looking at her in a way he wouldn’t have been looking without the cover of shadows.
His face was a Romanov face, with a strong, straight nose and angular jaw. His cheekbones were revealed now that his beard had been trimmed, and they were sharply cut as if from a perfect block of stone. But it was his lips that confessed in the sudden moonlight. They were softer than they’d been earlier. As full and gentled as they’d been when she’d kissed him days ago.
Anna didn’t wait for logic to catch up to her intentions. She allowed herself to press up against the big male body of her wolf. The heels that had threatened her equilibrium all night now enabled her to press her mouth to Soren’s. His lips were as soft as the moonlight said they’d be. She explored that one delicious vulnerability with her tongue.
“Anna,” Soren growled against her mouth. But it wasn’t a growl that was meant to repel. It was a hungry growl. One that warned of a devouring to come if she didn’t back away.
“Yes,” she whispered back. It wasn’t a question. It was an affirmation. She knew what she risked.
He pulled her into the shadows of the archway’s corner. He perched his hip on the ledge and she stepped between his knees. Their bodies melded. Her dress was no barrier; neither was the thin poplin of his dress shirt. Anna slid her hands beneath his jacket to feel the heated skin of his sides. He pulled her closer until her breasts flattened against his chest. Her arms wound around him to press against his muscled back.
And still her mouth clung to his.
She could taste wine on his tongue as she stroked hers against it. She remembered his confession from dinner, and she trembled as he licked deeply between her lips and his desire came true. Time had been their enemy and their friend. Now it stood still as they stole a moment away from the world. The intensity he’d radiated all night long was suddenly hers to taste and touch. She explored the heated ripple of his muscles until his shirt rode loose of his waistband and her hands found bare skin.
* * *
They both froze.
Soren hated her gloves in that moment. He resented their fear. She caressed his lower back, and the velvet only made him crave her actual touch more. Whether or not he trusted her abilities, he trusted her need to touch him.
Soren broke their kiss. He drew back and brought one of her hands to his face so that he could bite the tip of the middle finger on her glove. She gasped as his teeth closed on the velvet. But as he worked the glove loose to free her hand, Anna reached to stop him with her other hand. She cupped the side of Soren’s jaw with a velvet palm. They were in the shadows, but the glow of the moon reached them just enough so that he could see the gleam of her eyes. They sparkled more than they should. The kiss or his willingness to get rid of the glove had upset her.
“We can’t. Even if you trust me not to hurt you, I don’t trust myself. The energy I channel is too much for me to control sometimes,” Anna said. “I proved that when I took you through the Ether after the white wolf’s attack.”
Soren closed his eyes. He took a deep breath that shuddered his entire body with its release. His desire for her touch was nearly impossible for him to control. He should be glad that Anna had stopped him. But he wasn’t. Suddenly, her fear of her power seemed a horrible thing. Similar to his fear of the Ether and being trapped in the shift. They were both haunted.
She was a witch. He was a wolf.
There was no escape from what they were.
He still held her hand to his face, but he had released the velvet from his teeth. She looked up at him, and he could tell she held her breath as he decided what to do. There was no choice. He would respect her wishes. Her skin was hers. If she chose not to share it with him, he would let her go and back away.
“I’m not afraid of your touch,” he said. Then he released her hand. She drew it quickly back and cradled it with her other arm against her stomach. As if it might decide to caress him of its own volition.
“You should be,” she whispered.
She backed away from him, and the balmy night had suddenly gone cold. Once again he wondered if their sudden separation opened him up to the island’s true climate.
This time, the chill stayed with him as he followed Anna up the painted tile stairs.
Chapter 16
Soren caught up with her and took the lead by the time she reached her bedroom door. He opened it, but instead of stepping aside for her to pass, he crossed the threshold as if he was prepared for battle. His shoulders were stiff. His spine was straight. His hands were clenched, causing the muscles in his arm to bulge beneath his tuxedo.
Anna’s abilities responded to his tension. Gloves or not, the power of the Ether flowed into her fingers beneath the velvet. A soft greenish glow shone through the fabric to join with the rising moon to illuminate the room.
It was empty save for her and Soren.
In her opinion, that was threat enough, although admittedly in a different way than the Dark Volkhvy.
Soren was still focused on making sure there were no intruders. He paced around the room. He checked curtains and behind the clothes in her closet. Finally, when no stone had been left unturned—or negligee, for that matter—he came back to where she stood.
“It isn’t safe. Some of the guests can’t be trusted, but even with my wolf instincts, I don’t know if they’re the ones who stayed,” Soren said.
The very idea of the lank-haired witch prowling around her bedroom made Anna swallow hard in distaste.
“I’ll close and lock my door and windows. I’ll keep my guard up,” Anna said. “You know I’m experienced in survival.”
The glow beneath her gloves hadn’t faded. If anything, it seemed to brighten as he took another step closer to her as she spoke. The energy from the Ether in her fingers was nothing compared to the electricity that arced between her body and his. There had been no visible spark when their lips and tongues had touched, but it had been there all the same.
The spark between them was green, as well. Every time she blinked, it shimmered with emerald facets behind her eyelids.
“You were never the target before. As your mother’s heir, you might face a more determined enemy than we faced at Bronwal,” Soren said.
As if he didn’t realize what he did, he unclenched one fist and she drew in a startled breath as he brushed a curled tendril of hair from her cheek. She reached up to stop him before the simple gesture could become a caress. He allowed it. His hand froze in her gloved fingers. But it also combusted. Heat spread
from that point of contact, and she could tell by his widened eyes that it spread through him, too.
There was nothing magical about the heat. He was a man. She was a woman. Wolf and witch didn’t matter. Only their attraction mattered as the distant roar of crashing waves penetrated her room. Far away the ocean pounded the sand. In the quiet, moonlit shadows of her bedroom, her heart pounded with the same tidal inevitability.
“I have greater defensive capabilities than I had before,” Anna said.
“You don’t have to guard against me,” Soren said. He eased his hand back and she let him go. Even if she did regret it the second their fingers parted.
“Don’t I?” Anna asked. He was tragically attractive in this light in the intimate setting of her room. She’d slept peacefully so many times when he’d watched over her as the red wolf. But with his shirt loosened and his jacket rumpled and his lips swollen from her kisses, she suddenly wanted the man he’d become in her bed. She had to guard against the desire she felt for him. With every ounce of self-control she had.
“Never. I would never hurt you. I will always protect you from harm,” Soren said. Fear tingled down her spine as she recognized the seriousness in his tone as a vow.
“Even if that means protecting me from a Volkhvy enchantment that tries to bring us together,” Anna said. She suddenly knew a deeper truth than she’d known before. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t understood it from the start. It wasn’t only his family he protected by refusing the emerald sword’s decision. He was protecting her. She would be in danger if she accepted the Call, because the white wolf would never accept her.
He didn’t try to touch her or kiss her again, but his dark gaze tracked over her face as if he would memorize her shadowed features. Her heartbeat had slowed. Her breathing had quieted. But in the stillness, longing seemed loud between them.
“Rest. We have a journey through the Ether ahead of us. Even if it only takes seconds, it will feel like eternity,” Soren said. He was the one with the strength to back away this time. Her lips had gone dry. She had to moisten them with the tip of her tongue before she could speak.
“We’ve handled eternity together before,” she replied.
Soren walked silently out of her room. He closed the door with a quiet but decisive click. Once she sensed his presence fade away down the hall, she went through the motions of preparing for sleep.
They had handled eternity together, but how would they face it alone?
* * *
Soren forced himself to walk away when he wanted to stay. He wanted to do much more than stay. He had experienced everything he wanted to do in a torturous stream of sensual fantasy as they’d stood face-to-face, not touching, barely breathing and caught in a purgatory of possibilities that would never be realized.
He’d seen desire for him written on her face even in the darkness. He’d taken the time to catalog every flutter of her eyelashes, every soft sigh past her lips. She’d swayed toward him. If he’d touched her again, the torture might have been over for both of them.
Or just beginning.
How could they destroy the sword if they succumbed to the attraction that pulled them together in spite of their best intentions to ignore it?
If he allowed himself to indulge in even a quarter of the fantasies he’d imagined in those perilous moments, he would never let her go. And he’d be a worse betrayer of his brothers than Vasilisa herself.
He walked away. The corridor to his room was long and flanked on either side by other doors. He had no way of knowing how many guests had stayed. There must be hundreds of bedrooms in the palace, and many of them stood in between his room and Anna’s.
He managed to get all the way to his door before he stopped. He didn’t open it. Instead, he raised his face to the arched ceiling, took a deep breath and then leaned his hot forehead on the cool cherry panels.
Anna wasn’t safe.
Even if he had to endure a long night of misery, he had to go back and guard her room as he’d always done when he was the red wolf. It hadn’t been a habit. It had been a sacred obligation. The emerald sword and her Volkhvy abilities didn’t change the unspoken promise that had been between them from the start.
He would protect her even if his divided loyalties tore his body apart.
* * *
Anna knew when Soren was back outside her door. It wasn’t a breath or a sigh. The floor didn’t creak beneath his graceful feet. Maybe his shifter energy caused the molecules in the air to vibrate with his intensity. Maybe the distant Call of the emerald sword whispered a little louder in her soul. Or maybe she had been attuned to his presence or his absence for too long to stop now when she should.
She half expected the door to open. She half hoped to see his tall, masculine silhouette suddenly outlined by moonlight. Anna sat up in bed. The cool cotton sheet slid off her heated skin. If her thoughts about his kisses had manifested him, they stopped short of making him open the door.
She slipped from the bed.
The windows were closed and shuttered, as she’d promised. Her curtains were drawn. She walked in deep shadows to the door. She had taken off her gloves. They lay on the bedside table if she needed them. Never far out of reach. But she raised bare hands to the cool cherrywood and placed her palms flat and her fingers wide against it.
She wouldn’t try to disintegrate the barrier. She wished it away and thanked the universe for it at the same time. It was far past midnight. She’d been reliving every second of his kiss since he’d left her alone. Only the solid cherry door kept them apart.
Anna leaned her cheek against the wood in between her hands. She wasn’t trying to hear him breathe or listen for his heartbeat. She was only getting as close to him as their stark circumstances would allow.
The temperature of the wood compared to the flush of her face caused her to shiver. She wore a voluminous white silk gown that she’d pulled from a sachet-scented drawer. It had been wrapped in tissue and tied up with faded satin ribbons, as if it had never been worn since some seamstress had crafted it long ago.
Vasilisa liked fine things, and she’d shared them with her daughter. She’d filled the room with amenities, some vintage, some newly made. But Anna hadn’t found a robe with the nightgown.
Her trembling was caused as much by anticipation as by the chill.
She could invite him inside. They were alone. There were no Romanovs or Volkhvy here to stop them. Everyone else was sleeping. It wasn’t a conscious decision to step back and reach for the doorknob. Anna twisted it, and the metallic noise its movement made seemed like a confession in the dark.
She opened the door.
Soren was there. She’d had no doubt. But she hadn’t expected him to look so handsomely haggard and worn. He’d removed his jacket and his tie. His shirt was loose, unbuttoned midway down his chest and untucked from his tailored black pants. His hair looked dark and wild in the shadows, even with his new trimmed style. A tousled fringe covered one of his eyes.
“No. Go back inside. Close the door,” Soren ordered.
His voice was hoarse with emotion. It was warmed by past howls and a desire he no longer tried to hide. If she trembled, he shook. He was only standing there, but he looked as if he was buffeted by an unseen storm.
The tempest was inside him.
She recognized it, because it roared in her own chest, as well.
“The shift kept us apart for centuries. Together, but separated by tooth and claw. How can we let a door keep us apart now?” Anna whispered. Her voice shocked her. It was hoarse, as if she, too, had spent years howling. And maybe she had. Silently, desperately crying out to be free to run with the wolf she loved.
The emerald sword’s Call was only an echo of her own cry.
Soren moved so suddenly she didn’t have time to gasp his name. One second he shook in the hallway, refusing her invitation, and
the next he leaped to scoop her into his arms.
She was curvy and she’d enjoyed fine food since the curse had been broken, but her body was no burden to Soren’s big Romanov build. In fact, he lifted her high with strong hands on her waist and extended his muscular arms until she looked down at his upturned face. The sudden rush of movement made her dizzy in the dark, and she placed her hands on his broad shoulders to prevent the fall he would never have allowed in spite of her loss of equilibrium. He tilted slightly backward to take her weight with his broad chest as well as his hands.
And then he lowered her inch by inch down his hot, hard body until her mouth reached his lips.
They found each other easily even without a lamp.
This time when they kissed, there was no hesitation. She eagerly sank into his hungry welcome. It was more physical than it had been before. His rough stubble sensitized her cheeks and chin. She nipped and nibbled the full swell of his mouth that had been kept from her view for too long.
The taste of Soren was wintry sweet. She could still breathe in the Carpathian forest from his skin and hair. The evergreens, the snow, the fresh mountain air had all become a part of him. He needed no cologne. The scent of wilderness went with him everywhere he traveled, even here where the atmosphere was controlled.
Her wolf should be wild.
He’d been careful and watchful and vigilant for far too long. She could love him and set him free in more ways than one. They would destroy the sword, but first she would destroy the wall of control between them.
Anna tried to wrap her legs around Soren’s waist, but her nightgown wouldn’t allow the movement. She whimpered into his mouth and suddenly his strong hands gripped the fabric at her sides. She felt the silk bunching in his fists as he continued to plumb the depths of her mouth with his tongue.
And then the delicate material gave way.
Cool air washed over her bared legs, but her trembling response wasn’t a shiver. It was need. Her cheeks were wet with released emotion. Their kiss had gone salty with tears and perspiration.
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